THE    RURAL   COMMUNITY 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON    •    CHICAGO   -    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE 
RURAL  COMMUNITY 


BY 
LLEWELLYN   MAcGARR,   M.A, 

LINCOLN  COLLEGE,   LINCOLN,   ILLINOIS 


gorfe 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1922 

All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE   UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


\ 


COPYRIGHT,  1922, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  clectrotyped.     Published  March,  1922. 


>•*  '*    \ 

i    '•• 


NorfajooS 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO  THE  MEMORY 
OF    MY   PARENTS 


520598 


& fje  public  scrjool  must  00  foorfe  of  tfje  moist  funfca* 
mental  kinti.  It  must  teadj  people  to  libe  antJ  to  make 
a  lib  ing. 

Cjje  rural  scfjool  fs  tlje  leabentng  agent  m  trje  tiefael= 
opment  of  farm  life.  It  forill  train  a  neto  generation, 
clear^seeing  anfc  able  to  solbe  its  oton  problems. 


FOREWORD 

COUNTRY  life  in  America  is  improving.  The  out- 
look of  country  people  is  broadening,  their  sympathies 
are  deepening,  and  the  real  satisfactions  of  life  are  in- 
creasing. In  these  regards  the  few  are,  however,  far 
in  advance  of  the  many.  A  movement  is  now  under 
way  which  purposes  to  show  country  people  every- 
where how  to  live  the  more  satisfactory  life.  There 
are  many  whose  lives  are  too  concentrated  upon  debt 
paying  to  be  conscious  of  life  as  it  passes ;  others  have 
lapsed  into  a  state  of  inertia  of  body  and  mind  which 
makes  them  cry  out,  ''Leave  us  alone;  we  are  all 
right,"  while  they  live  selfish,  bickering  lives,  without 
any  of  the  blessings  which  come  from  associating  with 
and  trying  to  please  other  people. 

The  country  life  movement  is  largely  one  of  en- 
couraging a  higher  standard  of  living  in  the  home  and 
of  stimulating  social  activities  of  various  kinds  which 
relieve  the  isolation  of  country  life.  This  can  be  done 
by  showing  what  the  more  progressive  farmers  and 
farming  communities  are  doing  to  make  life  worth 
while.  It  is  believed  that  this  educational  work  will 
lead  to  spontaneous  efforts  to  live  a  more  satisfactory 
life  on  the  part  of  the  farming  population. 

The  schools,  churches,  and  clubs  are  the  organized 
efforts  for  rural  betterment.  Through  them  is  the 
greatest  hope  for  stimulating  the  growth  of  a  more 

vii 


viii  FOREWORD 

satisfactory  country  life.  This  book  should  render  an 
important  service  in  that  field.  Leaders  in  country 
life  improvement  —  teachers,  preachers,  and  progres- 
sive farm  men  and  women  —  will  welcome  it  as  a 
stimulating  guide  to  better  work. 

HENRY  C.  TAYLOR 

CHIEF  OF  BUREAU  OF  FARM  MANAGEMENT 
DEPT.  OF  AGRICULTURE, 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

One-time  Professor  of  Agricultural  Economics, 
University  of  Wisconsin. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

THE  author  acknowledges  with  gratitude  the  in- 
valuable advice  and  criticism  of  Professor  Henry  C. 
Taylor,  without  whose  help  and  encouragement  this 
work  could  not  have  been  written.  Grateful  acknowl- 
edgment is  made,  also,  to  Professor  Richard  T.  Ely 
for  his  encouragement  in  this  undertaking.  Apprecia- 
tion is  due  Mrs.  Henry  C.  Taylor  for  valuable  criticism 
and  for  reading  several  of  the  chapters ;  to  Professor 
Charles  J.  Galpin  for  original  ideas  as  to  methods  of 
studying  the  rural  community,  and  for  community 
maps  which  were  designed  by  him  as  a  part  of  his 
original  work  on  the  rural  community ;  to  Professor 
Benjamin  H.  Hibbard  for  most  of  the  material  used 
in  the  paragraphs  on  agricul  tural  cooperation ;  to 
Miss  Mary  Emogene  Hazeltine,  Preceptor  of  the  Wis- 
consin State  Library  School,  for  use  of  materials  neces- 
sary to  research  ;  to  Dr.  Frank  I.  Drake,  Superintendent 
of  Mendota  State  Hospital,  Mendota,  Wisconsin,  for 
valuable  criticism  relating  to  Chapter  V ;  to  Attorney 
Miles  C.  Riley,  Chairman  of  the  Law  Drafting  Committee 
of  Wisconsin  State  Legislature,  and  to  Organizer  Charles 
A.  Lyman  of  the  National  Board  of  Farm  Organizations 
for  material  on  rural  credit  and  agricultural  coopera- 
tion ;  to  Dr.  Henry  N.  Goddard,  State  Inspector  of 
High  Schools  in  Wisconsin,  for  material  relative  to 
rural  high  schools;  to  Mr.  Shelby  M.  Harrison  of  the 

ix 


x  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Russell  Sage  Foundation,  for  material  on  surveys ;  to 
Mr.  George  W.  Davies,  County  Superintendent  of 
Schools  of  Sauk  County,  Wisconsin,  for  the  use  of 
school  district  maps. 

Finally,  genuine  appreciation  is  extended  to  all  those 
friends  who  have  in  any  way  helped  the  writer  to  ac- 
complish this  work. 

LLEWELLYN  MACGARR 

MADISON,  WISCONSIN, 
September  30,  1920. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE    IN 

AMERICA i 

Dominance  of  Cities  in  American  Life  i 

Agriculture  Has  Failed  to  Advance  Its  Interests    .  2 

The  Importance  of  Agriculture      ....  4 

The  Awakening  to  Rural  Life  Problems        .         .  5 

The  Country  Life  Commission      ....  6 

The  Country  Life  Problem 9 

The    Outlook    for    Rural    Advancement  Is    En- 
couraging .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .11 

II    CONTRASTS  BETWEEN  URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  .  18 

The  New  America 18 

Our  Population  Classified  by  Place  of  Residence  .  20 
Some  Population  Differences  between  Cities  and 

Rural  Districts .22 

Difference  in  the  Distribution  of  Wealth       .         .  28 
Differences  in  the  Political  Situation     ...  29 
The  Mutual  Dependence  of  City  and  Rural  Dis- 
tricts            30 

The  Rural  Worker  Should  Know  the  Real  Condi- 
tions of  the  City 32 

III    THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  TO  THE  RURAL 

COMMUNITY 36 

Kinds  of  Surveys  .         .         .         .         .         .         -37 

The  Development  of  the  Idea       ....  39 

The  Educational  Survey        .         .   •  .         .40 

The  Purpose  of  a  Survey 44 

How  to  Make  a  Survey 44 


xii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Technique  of  the  Survey 46 

Analysis  of  the  Data  Obtained      ....  48 

Surveys  of  Rural  Communities      ....  49 

The  Teacher  May  Be  a  Surveyor  of  Her  District  54 

Maps  of  the  District 56 

A  Warning  to  Those  Who  Make  Rural  Surveys     .  56 

IV    CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL  COMMUNITIES         .        .  74 

Physiographic  Influences  upon  Rural  Life  .  .  74 
Relation  of  the  Farm  Neighborhood  to  the  City  or 

Village       .                                  ....  75 

Political  Environment  of  the  Rural  Community  .  78 

The  Social  Life 80 

Religious  Institutions 81 

Industrial  Influences  on  Cultural  Conditions         .  84 

V    SOCIALLY   DEFECTIVE  INDIVIDUALS  IN  RURAL  COM- 
MUNITIES  .        . 92 

Inequality  of  Capacity  of  Individuals   .         .         .  92 

Types  of  Defectives       .         .                 ...         .'  95 

The  Cost  to  Society      .         .       .....  103 

The  New  Attitude  toward  the  Subnormal     .         .103 
Mental  Tests  for  School  Children          .         .        '.  105 
What  the  Rural  Teacher  Can  Do  to  Help  Defec- 
tive Children     .       :.'        .         .         .       -.         .  109 

VI    THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL          .        .        .        .        *        .116 

Needed:  An  Adequate  Rural  School  System         .  116 

Our  Rural  Schools  Are  Out-of -Date  .  .  117 
Teachers  Specially  Trained  for  Rural  Work  Are 

Badly  Needed    .         .         .         .  '  .124 

Proper  Supervision        .         ...                           •  125 

Teachers'  Tenure  of  Office  and  Salaries  .  128 
A  Teacherage  for  Every  Rural  School  .  .129 
Courses  of  Study  Adapted  to  Present  Rural 

Needs .130 

Consolidated  Schools     ...                          .  134 

Home  Project  Work    .  .    ' 137 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  xiii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

VII    RURAL  SECONDARY  SCHOOLS         .        .        .        .        .     145 

Attitude  toward  Rural  Life 145 

Rural  People  Have   Lacked   High   School   Edu- 
cation          147 

The  Recognized  Need  for  Rural  Secondary  Edu- 
cation         147 

Types  of  the  New  Rural  Secondary  School  .  .149 
The  Special  Agricultural  School  .  •  .  .  .149 
The  Consolidated  Rural  High  School  .  .  .151 
The  Ruralized  Trade-center  High  School  .  .152 

The  Teacher  of  Agriculture 154 

The  Courses  of  Study    .         .         .         .  .155 

VIII    CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  IN  FARM  LIFE         .     162 
Commercial   Agriculture  versus    Domestic    Agri- 
culture        162 

The  Agricultural  Population          ..         . .       .         .     164 

The  Effects  of  Tenancy  on  Agriculture          .         .168 

Rural  Credits 172 

Stimulating  Productive  Efficiency         .         .         .175 

Labor-saving  Devices 181 

Rural  Cooperation 182 

Good  Roads  and  Other  Means  of  Communica- 
tion    190 

IX    CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  IN  FARM  LIFE      .        .    207 

Improvement  in  Agricultural  Life          .         .         .     207 

University  Extension  Work 207 

Farmers'  Institutes 209 

County  Libraries  .         .         .  .         .         .210 

Club  Aims 216 

Cooperation  of  Rural  Organizations      .         .         .218 

The  Social  Center 219 

Men's  Clubs 224 

Women's  Clubs .225 

Young  People's  Clubs 226 

The  Correlation  of  Religious  Interests  .        .         .     229 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  Model  Farm  Home Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Maps  Showing  Increase  or  Decrease  of  Population  of  Pennsyl- 
vania by  Counties,  1900-1910 21 

A  Community  Map  Showing  Extent  of  Education          .         .  50 
A  Community  Map  Showing  Homes  in  Which  Newspapers 

Are  Taken .51 

A  Community  Map  Showing  Proportion  of  Native  and  For- 
eign Born  Residents •  52 

A  Map  Indicating  the  Organized  Social  Agencies  of  a  Com- 
munity       53 

A  Rural  School  District  Map 57 

A  Consolidated  Church 83 

Plan  for  a  System  of  National  Education        .         .         .         .156 

Climbing  the  Agricultural  Ladder 165 

Stages  from  Tenancy  to  Ownership  Shown  by  Age  Groups  169 

Map  Indicating  Tenancy  in  United  States  in  1910          .         .  171 

The  Lincoln  Highway 195 

Industrial  Zones  about  a  City 196 

Proportion  of  Rural   Population  Reached   by   Libraries  in 

Indiana 210 

Proportion  of  Urban  Population  Reached   by  Libraries  in 

Indiana    .         .         .         .  • 211 

Map  of  Traveling  Library  Service  in  Indiana          .         .         .215 


xv 


THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 


CHAPTER   I 

STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE  IN 
AMERICA 

"Our  civilization  rests  at  bottom  upon  the  wholesomeness,  the 
attractiveness,  and  the  completeness,  as  well  as  upon  the  prosperity 
of  the  country  district."  —  ROOSEVELT. 

Dominance  of  Cities  in  American  Life.  -  -  The  last 
seventy-five  years  have  seen  an  unprecedented  growth 
of  city  population  and  city  industries.  In  1789,  less 
than  four  per  cent  of  our  people  lived  in  cities  of  8000 
or  more  ;  while  in  1920,  our  urban  population  had  risen 
to  51.9  per  cent.  In  some  of  our  eastern  industrial 
states,  from  two-thirds  to  three-fourths  of  the  people 
live  in  towns  and  cities.  We  are  no  longer  a  predomi- 
nantly rural  people.  The  rapid  industrial  develop- 
ment of  the  United  States  since  the  Civil  War  has 
been  chiefly  in  those  industries  that  center  in  large 
communities,  and  the  rapid  and  steady  growth  of  our 
urban  population  has  been  a  natural  result. 

With  this  industrial  development  has  come  a  gradual 
and  solid  organization  of  city  capital  and  of  city  labor, 
which  has,  in  turn,  brought  about  a  high  state  of 
efficiency  in  all  kinds  of  skilled  work  and  in  industrial 


2  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

management.  These  urban  interests  have  not  neglected 
definite,  organized  efforts  to  promote  their  own  welfare. 
They  have  been  quick  to  seek  special  legislation  for 
their  advancement.  Lobbyists  have  been  kept  at  the 
state  capitals  and  at  Washington.  The  great  urban 
interests  early  secured,  by  one  means  or  another, 
the  advantages  of  good  transportation  facilities  and 
rates,  and  other  economic  advantages  which  fos- 
ter urban  industries.  And  they  have  taken  a  very 
active  and  organized  part  in  state  and  national 
politics. 

Agriculture  has  been  less  successful  in  advancing 
its  interests.  Agriculture  has  not  obtained,  nor  even 
sought,  adequate  protection  of  its  interests,  or  its  due 
proportion  of  political  and  social  influence.  It  has 
been  too  largely  a  passive  factor  in  the  national  life. 
The  farmers,  being  independent  workers  and  their 
own  employers,  have  not  felt  an  urgent  need  of 
organization,  and  have  secured  little  special  legislation 
in  their  own  behalf.  In  other  lines  of  industry  the 
immediate  pressure  of  competition  has  forced  or  in- 
duced alliances  of  capital,  while  the  association  of 
workers  in  large  city  plants  has  greatly  facilitated 
labor  organization.  The  farmers  are  not  impelled 
by  competition  to  combine  with  their  fellows  to  ad- 
vance and  to  protect  their  mutual  interests  as  the 
city  business  man  is  obliged  to  do.  Independent 
workers  on  the  land,  five-eighths  of  whom  are  owners, 
cannot  be  organized  so  easily  as  day  laborers  liv- 
ing in  a  relatively  small  area  and  working  in  urban 
enterprises. 

Yet  the  enactment  from  time  to  time  of  the  legis- 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE      3 

lation  needed  to  protect  properly  the  interests  of  farm 
people,  and  to  improve  rural  life,  can  be  obtained  only 
by  the  organized  efforts  of  farmers  who  are  constantly 
and  collectively  thinking  on  rural  problems.  Many 
of  the  laws  enacted  to  promote  agriculture  have  sprung 
largely  from  the  urban  need  of  more  supplies,  and  have 
aimed  at  increased  production,  rather  than  at  better 
distribution  of  farm  products,  or  the  securing  of  higher 
prices  for  the  farmers.  Likewise,  the  efforts  heretofore 
made  to  improve  rural  life  have  frequently  originated 
among  educators  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  rural 
population,  rather  than  among  the  farmers  themselves. 
The  farmers  have  not  combined  their  strength  and 
knowledge  for  their  own  benefit  as  they  might  have 
done.  The  stimulation  and  leadership  of  the  thought 
of  the  farmers  themselves  are  the  great  present  needs 
for  rural  welfare. 

Our  country  people  are  individualistic  and  con- 
servative. Many  of  them  have  become  farmers  largely 
because  of  the  relative  independence  of  farm  life. 
The  management  of  farm  work  tends  to  develop  and 
accentuate  self-reliance  and  self-sufficiency.  The  city 
stands  constantly  on  the  firing  line  of  new  ideas. 
People  of  varying  capacities,  interests,  and  occupations 
mingle  and  stimulate  each  other  to  creative  thought. 
The  country,  on  the  other  hand,  is  thinly  settled ; 
its  people  are  more  nearly  alike  in  training  and  capac- 
ity, and  are  engaged  in  the  same  kind  of  work.  Their 
environment  does  not  so  easily  stimulate  new  thought 
and  the  development  of  new  modes  of  life.  The 
stimuli  which  have  been  arousing  the  farmers  in  many 
of  the  more  prosperous  farming  districts  to  higher 


4  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

standards  of  life  have  come  largely  from  the  cities, 
and  from  schools  and  colleges  located  in  the  urban 
centers,  rather  than  from  farm  life  itself.  In  the  long 
run,  however,  sound  progress  among  the  farmers  must 
be  the  result  of  forces  originating  more  largely  in  the 
farming  communities. 

The  country  has  been  at  a  disadvantage  in  the 
matter  of  leadership,  also.  Its  relatively  sparse  popu- 
lation has  made  impossible  the  development  of  any 
considerable  number  of  leaders  in  a  community. 
Moreover,  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  more  ag- 
gressive and  capable  country  people  leave  the  farm  and 
go  to  the  cities.  Numerous  trained  leaders  are  con- 
stantly showing  the  people  of  the  cities  what  they  need 
and  how  to  secure  it ;  while  the  absence  of  such  leader- 
ship is  to-day,  as  it  always  has  been,  one  of  the  great 
weaknesses  of  country  districts.  The  lack  has  been 
met  in  part  in  recent  years  by  a  new  rural  leadership 
provided  or  aroused  by  the  agricultural  colleges,  uni- 
versities, normal  schools,  theological  seminaries,  and 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture.  Yet 
the  need  is  far  from  satisfied.  There  is  still  a  lack  of 
that  adequate  leadership  without  which  organized 
cooperation  cannot  be  accomplished. 

The  Importance  of  Agriculture.  —  Agriculture  is  the 

basic  industry  of  the  world.     Its  importance,  from  the 

economic,  political,  and  social  points  of  view,  makes 

ithe   constructive   development   of   rural   welfare    im- 

*perative.     It  is  of  more  importance  to  mankind  than 

any  other  one  industry.     It  is  the  trunk  of  the  gigantic 

industrial  tree,  from  which  most  of  the  other  industries 

branch,  and  from  which  they  draw  their  sustenance. 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE      5 

A  prosperous  agricultural  interest  is  to  a  nation  what  a 
full  dinner  pail  is  to  a  working  man.  From  agriculture 
we  draw  not  only  our  food  supply,  but  the  raw  mate- 
rials for  half  our  manufactures.  Nearly  all  activities 
that  center  in  cities  are  so  vitally  related  to  agriculture 
that  bankers,  manufacturers,  merchants,  railroad  men, 
and  city  wage  earners  are  vitally  concerned  in  main- 
taining its  growth  and  development. 

But  agriculture  is  more  than  an  industry.  It  is  a  way 
of  life.  The  farm  and  the  farm  home  are  inseparable. 
Merchants  and  manufacturers  do  not  live  at  their 
places  of  business ;  neither  do  their  employees  live 
at  their  places  of  employment.  The  architect  does 
not  dwell  in  his  temple  ;  nor  the  engineer  on  his  bridge  ; 
nor  the  miner  in  his  mine.  .But  the  farmer's  work  is 
centered  at  his  home.  The  life,  as  well  as  the  income, 
of  over  one-half  the  people  of  the  world,  and  of  over 
one- third  of  the  people  of  our  own  country,  is  de- 
termined by  the  activities  and  the  surroundings  of  the 
farm.  A  vigorous,  intelligent,  and  wholesome  rural 
life  is  essential  to  sound  and  permanent  national 
greatness. 

Yet  agriculture  has  not  kept  pace  with  the  other 
great  American  industries,  and  the  quality  of  farm 
life  has  not  improved  so  rapidly  as  the  quality  of  life 
in  the  city.  Isolation  and  limited  educational  oppor- 
tunities, and  in  many  communities  religious  stag- 
nation, political  disorganization,  or  unprogressive  busi- 
ness methods,  have  combined  to  put  the  country  at  a 
disadvantage. 

The  Awakening  to  Rural  Life  Problems.  —  A  con- 
sciousness that  country  life  has  not  improved  as  it 


6  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

should  has  been  gradually  spreading  throughout  the 
United  States  during  recent  years.  Political  leaders 
interested  in  national  welfare  have  succeeded  in  pro- 
moting agricultural  legislation  both  at  Washington  and 
in  many  of  the  states.  President  Roosevelt,  in  1908, 
appointed  a  Country  Life  Commission  to  investigate 
the  economic  and  social  aspects  of  agricultural  life 
in  America.  The  public  hearings  held  by  this  Com- 
mission in  the  different  sections  of  the  United  States 
during  1909  led  to  a  widespread  discussion  of  agri- 
cultural conditions.  As  a  result,  public  thought  was 
directed  to  certain  definite  aspects  of  the  rural  prob- 
lem, and  efforts  to  improve  rural  life  were  stimulated 
throughout  the  nation. 

The  Country  Life  Commission.  —  This  Commission 
was  particularly  interested  in  securing  the  opinions 
of  the  people  themselves  on  the  main  aspects  of 
rural  life,  and,  to  this  end,  distributed  550,000 
copies  of  a  detailed  questionnaire  in  all  sections  of  the 
country.1 

One  hundred  and  fifteen  thousand  replies  to  this 
questionnaire,  and  public  hearings  held  at  thirty  places 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  convinced  the  Com- 
mission that  there  are  eight  serious  deficiencies  in 
American  rural  life  which  should  be  corrected  by  con- 
structive public  policies.  These  are 

1.  The  destruction  or  impairment  of  soil  fertility 
by  careless  methods  of  farming  and  by  erosion  due  to 
the  reckless  removal  of  forests. 

2.  The  increasing  difficulty  in  securing  an  adequate 
supply  of  skilled  farm  labor. 

1  The  questionnaire  will  be  found  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE      7 

3.  Speculation  in  farm  lands  and  in  water  rights  in 
irrigated  districts. 

4.  Poor  highways,  which  interfere  both  with  the 
marketing  of  products  and  the  education  of  country 
children. 

5.  Marketing  methods  and   conditions  which   sub- 
ordinate the   farmer's   interests   to  those  of  railways 
and  middlemen. 

6.  Lack    of    proper    health    protection     for    rural 
families. 

7.  Overwork  of  farm  women,  which  causes   many 
farm  girls  to  go  to  the  city  and  many  farmers  and  their 
wives  to  leave  the  farm  long  before  their  working  life 
should  terminate. 

8.  The  backwardness  of  rural  schools. 

The  decade  which  has  elapsed  since  the  publication 
of  the  Commission's  findings  has  seen  a  rapid  advance 
in  many  sections  of  the  country  in  the  improvement  of 
farm  life.  The  agricultural  experiment  stations,  the 
agricultural  colleges,  the  federal  and  state  departments 
of  agriculture,  and  thousands  of  progressive  farmers 
scattered  throughout  the  country,  have  furnished  a 
leadership  which  has  improved  the  methods  of  culture 
on  hundreds  of  thousands  of  farms,  and  materially 
assisted  the  farmers  in  fighting  noxious  weeds,  de- 
structive insects  and  animals,  and  plant  and  animal 
diseases. 

The  annual  and  biennial  reports  of  public  officials 
are  ordinarily  considered  "  dry  "  reading.  But  some 
of  the  reports  of  the  recently  organized  state  depart- 
ments of  agriculture  are  more  interesting  than  a  story, 
for  they  tell,  in  word  and  picture,  the  wizardry  of  man's 


8  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

conquest  of  the  farmer's  natural  enemies.  One  catches 
the  vision  of  the  men  who  are  making  secure  the 
world's  food  supply  and  who  are  teaching  farmers  how 
to  conserve  rather  than  waste  soil  fertility. 

The  1918  report  of  the  Wisconsin  State  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  organized  in  1915,  is  a  revela- 
tion of  the  awakening  of  agriculturists.  In  1917  the 
state  was  faced  by  a  "  phenomenal  shortage  of  seed 
potatoes."  The  Department  of  Agriculture  obtained 
in  other  states,  and  distributed  in  Wisconsin,  $74,000 
worth  of  seed  potatoes.  This  enabled  Wisconsin  to 
produce  a  large  potato  crop.  Much  of  the  seed  corn 
had  been  ruined  the  preceding  fall  by  frost.  The 
Department  of  Agriculture  obtained  in  Connecticut, 
New  York,  northern  Pennsylvania,  South  Dakota, 
Minnesota,  Washington,  and  Oregon,  19,148  bushels 
of  seed  corn  for  Wisconsin  farmers. 

But  these  are  only  incidental  activities.  The  every- 
day work  of  the  Department  has  eliminated  both  the 
common  and  the  purple  barberry,  which  are  the  car- 
riers of  black  wheat  rust ;  has  greatly  reduced  the 
various  "  scabs,"  which  are  destroying  fruit  and  shade 
trees ;  is  attacking  the  diseases  in  the  bee  industry, 
locating  and  destroying  the  white  pine  blister  rust, 
eliminating  weeds,  inspecting  feeds  sold  to  dairymen, 
improving  the  quality  of  stocks  kept  on  farms,  and 
accomplishing  improvement  in  the  technique  and  con- 
ditions of  agriculture  in  Wisconsin,  and,  indirectly, 
throughout  the  country. 

The  improvement  of  highways  and  the  development 
of  rural  education  have  been  two  of  the  leading  move- 
ments of  the  last  decade.  The  increasing  use  of  the 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE     g 

automobile  has  interested  the  city  man  as  well  as  the 
farmer  in  highway  improvement,  while  growing  inter- 
est, in  schools  and  colleges,  in  the  study  of  rural  life  has 
called  more  and  more  attention  to  the  needs  of  the  rural 
school. 

The  labor  problems  of  the  farm,  both  in  the  field 
and  the  home,  probably  represent  the  phase  of  farm 
life  which  has  thus  far  baffled  efforts  for  material  im- 
provement. But  the  increasing  use  of  power-driven 
machinery  has  mitigated  this  situation  in  the  more 
prosperous  farming  districts,  even  when  it  has  been 
impossible  to  increase  the  supply  of  labor.  The 
churn  is  disappearing  from  the  farm,  while  power- 
driven  washing  machines,  electric  flatirons,  running 
water,  and  electric  as  well  as  gas  lights  are  coming 
into  the  farm  home  with  increasing  frequency.  Me- 
chanical ingenuity  is  relieving,  in  part,  the  farm  labor 
situation,  even  inside  the  house. 

A  survey  of  farm  life  to-day  does  not,  therefore, 
present  such  a  dark  picture  as  at  the  time  when  the 
Country  Life  Commission  made  its  report,  but  one 
must  not  be  deceived  by  the  signs  of  progress.  It  is 
as  easy  to  overestimate  the  forces  of  progress  on  the 
farm  as  to  underestimate  them.  Only  a  beginning 
has  been  made.  The  bulk  of  the  work  lies  before  us. 

The  Country  Life  Problem.  —  This  problem  has  both 
a  social  and  an  individual  aspect.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  society,  it  is  necessary  to  maintain  upon  our 
farms  a  high  standard  of  American  citizenship,  and 
efficient,  wholesome  family  and  community  life.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  the  individual,  it  is  necessary  to 
make  possible  a  satisfactory  life  and  livelihood  for 


10  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

every  farmer  who  is  efficient  in  his  vocation.  His 
energies  must  be  as  well  rewarded  in  earnings  and 
scale  of  living  as  are  those  of  similar  persons  working 
in  urban  pursuits.  Farm  life  must  be  satisfactory 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  race,  of  the  nation,  of  the 
community,  and  of  the  farmer  himself.  It  must  be 
continually  approaching  the  ideal,  —  industrially,  edu- 
cationally, socially. 

Corn  clubs,  tomato  clubs,  and  pig  clubs  do  not 
reach  the  heart  of  the  problem.  With  these,  and 
supplementing  them,  must  go  the  organized  activities 
which  will  mean  to  the  rural  community  what  the 
Boy  Scouts,  Camp  Fire  Girls,  Young  Men's  Christian 
Associations,  Young  Women's  Christian  Associations, 
athletic,  debating,  magazine,  literary,  and  music  clubs, 
and  free  public  libraries  have  meant  to  the  cities  and 
towns.  Some  of  these  organizations  can  be  developed 
in  the  country  districts.  The  benefits  provided  by  all 
of  them  must  in  some  way  be  made  accessible.  Rural 
improvement  means  developing  a  better  people  — 
more  intelligent,  more  capable  of  appreciating  those 
finer  things  that  lead  to  culture,  more  patriotic  in  the 
deep  and  genuine  sense ;  not  merely  "  raising  more 
corn  to  feed  more  hogs  to  buy  more  land  to  raise  more 
corn."  The  farmer  is  of  more  consequence  than  the 
farm.  Indeed,  the  farm  can  be  improved  only  when 
the  farmer  is  also  improved.  The  place  to  begin  is 
with  the  man  behind  the  plow.  Improved  agriculture 
is  a  matter  of  fertile  brain  even  more  than  of  fer- 
tile field.  Mind  culture  is  essential  to  proper  soil 
culture. 

Yet  we  must  remember  that  the  rate  of  educational 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE    n 

and  social  progress  depends  in  a  certain  measure  upon 
the  current  economic  conditions.  The  improvement 
of  the  man  is  essential  to  the  improvement  of  pro- 
duction ;  the  increased  income  that  comes  with  in- 
creased efficiency  in  turn  becomes  the  basis  of  further 
improvement  of  the  man.  A  degree  of  prosperity  is 
essential  to  the  improvement  in  culture  of  a  popu- 
lation. One  cannot  say  that  production  depends 
upon  culture,  or  that  culture  depends  upon  production. 
The  facts  are  that  each  is  dependent  upon  the  other  and 
each  promotes  the  other.  Happy,  enthusiastic,  culti- 
vated people  are  rarely,  if  ever,  found  in  the  midst  of 
grinding  poverty.  The  mind  works  best  and  the  spirit 
is  freest  in  a  sound  body,  well  fed  and  well  clothed.  It 
is  in  successful  communities  that  good  homes,  good 
schools,  and  the  most  progressive  people  are  found. 
Social  advancement  and  improvement  in  agricultural 
production  must  go  together.  Neither  can  be  attained 
alone. 

The  Outlook  for  Rural  Advancement  is  Encourag- 
ing. —  Farmers  are  middle  class  people,  neither  ener- 
vated by  luxury  nor  crushed  by  poverty.  When  they 
once  clearly  see  their  own  needs  and  possibilities  and 
the  means  of  attaining  them,  they  are  capable  of 
forging  ahead  speedily.  The  first  difficulty  (and  it  is 
often  a  serious  one)  encountered  in  many  rural  com- 
munities is  that  of  convincing  the  farmers  that  rural 
life  can  be  materially  and  somewhat  rapidly  improved 
if  the  farmers  set  themselves  to  the  task.  In  the  end, 
the  work  of  rural  development  is  a  problem  to  be  dealt 
with  from  within,  rather  than  from  without,  the  farm- 
ing community.  The  country  people  must  depend 


12  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

largely  upon  themselves  to  solve  their  problems.  The 
sons  and  daughters  of  farmers,  trained  in  agricultural 
colleges  and  similar  institutions  and  returning  to  farm 
life,  are  already  commencing  to  provide  a  new  type  of 
leadership.  The  number  of  progressive  farmers  is  in- 
creasing. There  is  a  more  widespread  study  of  rural 
matters  and  a  greater  willingness  to  cooperate  and  to 
organize.  Farmers  are  learning  to  use  their  political 
power  more  effectively,  and  a  clearer  understanding 
of  the  relation  of  farming  to  the  other  great  industries, 
and  of  its  strategic  place  in  the  national  life,  is  extend- 
ing to  farmers  and  non-farmers  alike.  Slowly  but 
surely,  farmers  are  acquiring  a  social  point  of  view. 
Rural  people  are  beginning  to  understand  that  the 
forces  that  make  for  rural  betterment  must  themselves 
be  rural,  and  they  are  looking  more  than  ever  before 
for  guidance  to  those  persons  within  the  community 
whose  positions  peculiarly  fit  them  to  raise  rural  life 
to  a  better  plane. 

Teachers  and  clergymen  are  among  the  natural 
leaders  in  rural  betterment.  Few  rural  communities 
can  have  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  Boy 
Scout,  or  other  professional  social  workers,  and  the 
stimulus  to  social  advancement  must  come  largely 
from  the  schools  and  the  churches.  The  teacher  or 
clergyman  who  is  prepared  to  serve  the  general  human 
needs  of  a  farming  community,  particularly  among  the 
young  people,  has  a  real  opportunity.  He  can  influ- 
ence and  lead  the  community  in  constructive  peace- 
time patriotism,  the  patriotism  that  helps  the  nation 
to  attain  its  ideals,  not  simply  to  defend  its  shores. 
It  will  be  long  before  rural  communities  will  be  able 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE    13 

to  afford  corps  of  professional  social  workers  com- 
parable to  those  at  work  in  the  cities,  and  the  task 
of  rural  social  betterment  must  be  accomplished  very 
largely  by  the  farmers  themselves,  led  by  the  school 
teachers,  clergymen,  and  trained  agriculturists  who 
are  living  in  the  communities.1 

One  of  the  first  duties  of  rural  leaders  is  so  to  in- 
terpret the  real  meaning  of  American  democracy  as 
to  build  up  in  our  rural  districts  an  intelligent,  clear- 
seeing,  patriotic  citizenship  that  makes  for  national 
solidarity  and  strength.  Our  composite  democracy  — 
a  mosaic  of  many  races,  nationalities,  and  religions  — 
will  endure  only  if  successive  generations  are  trained  to 
a  faith  in  its  intrinsic  worth  and  to  an  understanding 
of  its  real  meaning.  The  perfecting  of  this  democracy 
from  generation  to  generation  is  the  goal  of  the  nation. 
Such  perfecting  is  attained  only  by  making  its  ideals 
of  human  welfare  become  facts  of  human  welfare.  To 
millions  of  our  children  —  the  legislators,  jurists, 
executives,  editors,  social  workers,  voters,  parents  of 
to-morrow  —  America  and  the  democracy  for  which 
she  stands  will  mean  almost  entirely  the  interpretation 
which  the  teachers,  preachers,  and  other  social  workers 
of  to-day  are  able  or  willing  to  give  to  these  terms. 
Their  interpretation  will  be  read  in  terms  of  the  in* 
stitutions  which  they  construct.  The  time  has  come 
when  those  who  believe  in  democracy  are  demanding 
that  the  word  be  made  flesh ;  that  dreams  become 

1  Some  very  practical  suggestions  with  regard  to  leadership  in  rural 
communities,  and  also  plans  for  the  promotion  of  rural  social  work, 
will  be  found  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  National  Conference  of  Social 
Work,  1917,  pp.  611-647. 


14  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

realities.     The  next  generation  will  be  more  insistent 
than  our  own  upon  real  rather  than  shadow  democracy. 


QUESTIONNAIRE  SENT  OUT  BY  THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  COMMISSION 

The  following  list  of  questions  was  sent  out  by  the  Country  Life 
Commission  to  over  550,000  people  in  rural  communities  : 

1.  Are  the  farm  homes  in  your  neighborhood  as  good  as  they 
should  be  under  existing  conditions  ? 

2.  Are  the  schools  in  your  neighborhood  training  boys  and  girls 
satisfactorily  for  life  on  the  farm  ? 

3.  Do  the  farmers  in  your  neighborhood  get  the  returns  they 
reasonably  should  from  the  sale  of  their  products? 

4.  Do  the  farmers  in  your  neighborhood  receive  from  the  rail- 
roads, highways,  trolley  lines,  etc.,  the  services  they  reasonably 
should  have  ? 

5.  Do  the  farmers  in  your  neighborhood  receive  from  the  United 
States  postal  service,  rural  telephones,  etc.,  the  service  they  reason- 
ably should  expect  ? 

6.  Are  the  farmers  and  their  wives  in  your  neighborhood  satis- 
factorily organized  to  promote  their  mutual  buying  and  selling  in- 
terests ? 

7.  Are  the  renters  of  farms  in  your  neighborhood  making  a 
satisfactory  living  ? 

8.  Is  the  supply  of  farm  labor  in  your  neighborhood  satisfac- 
tory? 

9.  Are  the  conditions  surrounding  hired  labor  on  the  farms  in 
your  neighborhood  satisfactory  to  the  hired  man  ? 

10.  Have    the    farmers    in    your    neighborhood    satisfactory 
facilities  for  doing   their   business  in  banking,  credit,  insurance, 
etc.? 

11.  Are  the  sanitary  conditions  of  farms  in  your  neighborhood 
satisfactory  ? 

12.  Do  the  farmers  and  their  wives  and  families  in  your  neigh- 
borhood get  together  for  mutual  improvement,  entertainment,  and 
social  intercourse  as  much  as  they  should? 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE    15 

13.  What,  in  your  judgment,  is  the  most  important  single  thing 
to  be  done  for  the  general  betterment  of  rural  life? 

Following  each  of  these  questions  were  the  subquestions : 

a.  Why? 

b.  What  suggestions  have  you  to  make  ? 

QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 

The  following  list  of  questions  provides  material  for  at  least 
two  reading  circle  meetings.  The  first  four  questions  and  the  first 
reference  will  provide  material  for  the  first  meeting.  The  remainder 
of  the  questions  and  references  will  be  abundant  material  for  the 
second  meeting. 

Special  problem  work :  Teachers'  clubs  and  reading  circles  will 
find  it  worth  while  to  have  individuals  or  small  committees  each 
take  one  of  the  questions  asked  by  the  Country  Life  Commission 
and  study  local  conditions  in  the  light  of  the  particular  question. 
The  report  of  this  committee  should  form  the  basis  of  group  dis- 
cussion. These  discussions  could  be  taken  up  from  time  to  time 
during  the  course  of  the  work. 

1.  What  do  various  writers   mean    by   "The    Country    Life 
Problem"? 

2.  What  do  they  consider  to  be  the  heart  of  this  problem? 

3.  What  was  the  Country  Life  Commission?     Discuss  its  mem- 
bers and  the  work  done  by  it. 

4.  State  briefly  the  findings  of  the  Commission  in  the  order  of 
importance  given  by  the  Commission.     Would  you  give  them  in  this 
order  for  all  rural  communities  in  this  country  ?     Arrange  them  as 
they  should  rank  in  your  own  community. 

5.  What  is  meant    by   calling  agriculture  our   "  basic  indus- 
try"? 

6.  What  other  industries  are  dependent  upon  or  grow  out  cf 
agriculture  ? 

7.  State  some  ways  in  which  the   business   of  manufacturing 
differs  from  the  business  of  agriculture. 

8.  What  needs  of  farm  people  have  been  neglected  ? 

9.  In  what  ways  have  farm  people  received  especial  attention 
in  recent  years  ? 


16  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

10.  How  can  farm  people  work  out  their  own  development? 
Do  you  think  this  can  be  accomplished  within  one  generation  ? 

11.  Do  you  think  that  other  industries  should  help  in  the  de- 
velopment of  agriculture?     How? 

12.  What    is    meant    by     "social    work"?     Who    are    social 
workers?     Who    in    our    rural    districts    might    be   called  social 
workers  ? 

13.  Why  have  rural   districts  not  had  the  services  of  well- 
trained  social  workers?     Why  have  those  desiring  to  do  social 
work  gone  to  the  cities  ? 

14.  State  some  of  the  things  which  rural  people  can  do  to  help 
in  the  development  of  rural  life. 

15.  Make  a  list  of  at  least  six  men  and  women,  not  mentioned  in 
the  references  to  this  chapter,  who  have  written  along  the  line  of 
rural  betterment. 

16.  Make  a  list  of  at  least  six  universities  and  colleges  that  have 
been  leaders  in  the  country  life  movement. 

17.  How  many  books  bearing  upon  rural  life  do  you  own  ?     How 
many  have  you  read  ? 

1 8.  Do  you  think  rural  teachers  should  be  required  to  read  such 
books? 

19.  Name  some  of  the  activities  of  your  State  Department  of 
Agriculture   and    State  Agriculture   College    similar  to  those    of 
Wisconsin. 

20.  What  is   the   United    States    Department   of   Agriculture 
doing  to  help  country  life? 

REFERENCES 

BAILEY,  LIBERTY  HYDE.     The  Country  Life  Movement  in  the  United 

States,  pp.  201-220.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York, 

1911. 

— .     The  State  and  the  Farmer,  Chapter  II,  pp.  56-69.     The 

Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1908. 
BUTTERFIELD,  KENYON  L.     Chapters  in  Rural  Progress,  Chapters 

I,  II,  pp.  1-22.     University  of  Chicago  Press,  1908. 
GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.     Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapters  I,  II, 

III.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 


STRATEGIC   IMPORTANCE  OF  AGRICULTURAL  LIFE    17 

PLUNKETT,  SIR  HORACE.     The  Rural  Life  Problem  of  the  United  States, 

Chapters  I-IV.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1910. 
TAYLOR,  HENRY  C.     Agricultural  Economics,  Chapters  I,  II,  VIII, 

XI.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1919. 
U.  S.  COUNTRY  LIFE  COMMISSION.     The  Report  of  the  Country  Life 

Commission.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1910. 
WEEKS,  RUTH  MARY.     The  People's  School,  Chapter  VI.   Houghton 

Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  1912. 


CHAPTER   II 

CONTRASTS  BETWEEN  URBAN  AND  RURAL 
DISTRICTS 

The  New  America.  —  America  passed  through  her 
adolescence  in  the  nineteenth  century.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century,  she  was  in  her  infancy,  not  only 
politically  but  also  industrially.  Before  the  Civil 
War  she  began  to  use  steam  power  to  drive  fac- 
tory machinery,  boats,  and  trains.  Electricity  gave 
her  the  means  of  keeping  the  people  in  far  separated 
states  in  constant  communication  with  each  other  and 
the  outside  world.  Steam,  electric,  and  gasoline 
power ;  the  telephone,  telegraph,  and  wireless ;  the 
railroad,  automobile,  and  aeroplane  ;  the  public  school, 
public  library,  and  daily  newspaper;  and  the  added 
labor  power  of  thirty- three  million  people  who  left 
Europe  in  the  century  preceding  1919  to  make  new 
homes  in  America,  —  all  have  combined  to  transform 
America  from  a  relatively  small  agricultural  nation  to 
a  great  nation  with  hundreds  of  teeming  cities,  among 
which  are  some  of  the  largest  and  most  cosmopolitan 
in  the  world. 

The  America  of  the  Civil  War  resembles  the  America 
of  the  present  only  as  the  child  resembles  the  man. 
It  is  hard  to  realize  that  the  large  scale  production  and 
the  transportation  system  of  the  present  time,  the 

gigantic    combinations    of    capital,    the    international 

18 


URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  19 

trade  unions,  and  the  concentration  of  population  in 
manufacturing  centers  have  developed  in  America 
since  the  Civil  War.  Around  rapidly  expanding  in- 
dustries, cities  have  sprung  up  like  magic.  To  furnish 
them  with  labor,  immigrants  have  come  from  Europe 
by  millions.  The  efforts  of  individual  businesses  to 
acquire  adequate  supplies  of  raw  materials,  to  utilize 
by-products  profitably,  and  to  secure  the  profits  of  the 
successive  stages  in  the  process  of  manufacture  and 
sale,  have  induced  the  combination  of  related  indus- 
tries and  the  creation  of  new,  complex  industries,  until 
single  corporations  often  produce  a  hundred  or  more 
different  commodities. 

The  new  urban  life  which  was  the  accompaniment 
of  this  industrial  miracle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
could  not  but  have  a  powerful  fascination  for  the 
youth  of  the  agricultural  districts  of  the  United  States. 
The  variety  of  economic  opportunity,  the  surging  life 
of  city  streets,  the  recreation  and  amusement  facilities, 
the  educational  agencies,  the  volume  and  intensity 
of  urban  life,  have  drawn  a  multitude  of  aspiring  and 
energetic  youth  from  the  country  districts  to  the  cities. 
Retired  farmers,  and  those  wishing  to  take  life  easily 
in  their  declining  years,  have  made  up  another,  though 
smaller,  town  ward  stream. 

The  student  interested  in  rural  life  and  welfare  can- 
not interpret  American  rural  life  correctly  without 
seeing  it  in  relation  to  the  accompanying  urban  life 
of  the  nation.  The  extent  to  which  we  are  becoming 
a  town-  and  city-dwelling  nation  must  be  known  before 
we  can  finally  decide  upon  our  rural  policies.  It 
makes  a  great  deal  of  difference,  too,  whether  the 


20  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

majority  of  our  people  are  living,  or  tend  to  live,  in 
hamlets  —  small  clusters  of  houses  in  the  country 
having  no  village  organization  and  but  a  hundred  or 
so  inhabitants ;  in  minor  villages  of  from  five  hundred 
to  a  thousand  people ;  in  major  villages  and  towns  of 
from  a  thousand  to  six  thousand  residents ;  in  minor 
cities  with  a  population  of  six  to  twenty  thousand ; 
or  in  the  larger  cities. 

Our  Population  Classified  by  Place  of  Residence.  - 
The  essential  fact  in  the  situation  is  that  our  rapid 
industrial  development  has  brought  a  corresponding 
increase  in  our  strictly  urban  population.  In  1789 
less  than  4  per  cent  of  our  people  lived  in  cities ;  in 
1920,  51.9  per  cent  lived  in  cities  and  in  towns  of  more 
than  25OO.1  The  Census  Bureau,  in  1900,  made  this 
2500  limit  the  boundary  between  urban  and  rural 
districts,  and  divided  our  population  into  three  classes : 
rural,  semi-urban,  and  urban.  The  rural  population 
includes  all  towns  of  2500  and  less  as  well  as  the  open 
country.  The  semi-urban  class  includes  towns  of  from 
2500  to  4000.  The  urban  class  includes  all  towns  of 
4000  and  more,  together  with  1158  smaller  towns  in 
New  England  made  up  of  people  whose  interests  are 
urban. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  differences  in  age  distri- 
bution in  city  and  country  districts.  In  the  latter 
there  are  more  people  under  fourteen  years  of  age 
and  over  forty-five  than  in  the  cities  ;  in  the  cities  there 

1  The  city- ward  drift  of  population  during  the  nineteenth  century 
is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  United  States.  The  nations  of  Western 
Europe,  and  even  outlying  agricultural  countries  like  Australia,  have 
experienced  the  same  phenomenon.  See  maps- 


PER  CENT  OF  INCREASE  OR  DECREASE  OF  POPULATION  OF  PENNSYLVANIA,  BY  COUNTIES:  1900-1910 

In  case  of  decrease  the  per  cent  la  Inserted  under  the  county  name. 


TOTAL  POPULATION 


RURAL  POPULATION 


The  population  of  the  purely   agricultural   districts   is   decreasing,    while    that   of 
the  counties  in  which  mining  and  manufacturing  are  dominant  is  increasing. 


21 


22  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

are  more  people  of  from  fifteen  to  forty-five  years  than 
in  the  country.  This  is  in  part  due  to  the  migration 
of  young  adults  from  Europe  to  American  cities ;  in 
part,  to  their  migration  from  our  rural  districts  to  the 
cities.  The  large  percentage  of  young  adults  in  cities 
is  one  reason  for  the  vigorous,  aggressive  life  of  urban 
centers.  The  relatively  large  proportion  of  children 
and  old  people  in  the  country  puts  the  rural  district 
at  a  certain  disadvantage. 

Some  Population  Differences  between  Cities  and 
Rural  Districts.  -  -  The  greater  density  of  population 
in  cities  is  another  factor  that  tends  to  differentiate 
city  and  country  life.  A  city  has  many  people  living 
in  a  comparatively  small  area.  A  city  of  20,000 
people  will  often  have  from  400  to  600  families  per 
square  mile,  whereas  a  typical  rural  community  in  the 
Middle  Atlantic  States  will  scarcely  average  more 
than  ten  families  per  square  mile.  In  the  rural  sec- 
tions of  many  of  our  Western  States,  there  is  often 
not  one  family  to  the  square  mile.  Consequently, 
the  city  suffers  from  congestion  ;  the  rural  community, 
from  isolation. 

Area  is  not  so  necessary  to  the  industries  carried  on 
in  towns  and  cities  as  it  is  to  farming.  When  a  manu- 
facturer or  a  merchant  wishes  to  increase  his  business, 
he  may  do  so  in  either  of  two  ways :  by  spreading  his 
plant  over  more  land  or  by  adding  another  story  to 
his  present  building.  The  farmer  has  not  so  great  an 
opportunity  to  increase  his  output  on  a  given  land 
area.  He  can  increase  his  output  per  acre  up  to  a 
certain  point  by  farming  what  land  he  has  more  in- 
tensively, but  he  soon  finds  that  further  application  of 


URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  23 

effort  to  the  same  piece  of  land  is  unprofitable.  Farm- 
ing, by  its  very  nature,  must  spread  over  more  area 
than  do  city  industries.  It  cannot  so  largely  increase 
its  output  on  the  same  land  area  as  city  industries 
often  can.  It  is,  of  course,  true  that  when  land  is 
cheap  both  manufacturers  and  farmers  use  more  area 
than  when  it  is  especially  valuable. 

Other  essential  differences  between  town  and  country 
industries  may  be  noted.  Constant  contacts  with 
people  are  characteristic  of  city  occupations.  The 
artisans,  tradesmen,  business,  and  professional  people 
of  the  city  are  in  almost  constant  contact  with  their 
fellowmen.  Their  success  frequently  depends  upon 
ability  to  work  advantageously  with  other  people. 
City  workers  have  little  direct  contact  with  nature  and 
crude  natural  forces.  The  farmer,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  engaged  in  an  industry  in  which  he  meets  natural 
forces  at  first  hand,  and  his  contact  with  his  fellow- 
men  is  correspondingly  less. 

City  industries,  again,  make  greater  use  of  the 
division  of  labor.  The  productive  process  is  commonly 
minutely  subdivided  and,  in  some  factories,  each 
laborer  performs  but  a  single  operation.  He  becomes 
a  rapid  and  skillful  workman ;  time  is  saved ;  more 
goods  are  produced ;  cost  is  lowered ;  and  profits  are 
increased.  Of  course,  not  every  worker  in  manu- 
facturing industries  is  subjected  to  such  close  division 
of  labor,  but  the  principle  is  employed  wherever  con- 
ditions permit.  Modern  industrial  organization  has 
made  this  division  of  labor  possible.  Agriculture 
admits  of  much  less  division  of  labor  than  other  in- 
dustries, because  there  are  fewer  processes  than  in 


24  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

manufacturing,  and  these  processes  cannot  be  simul- 
taneously performed.  For  example,  when  a  farmer 
plants  corn,  he  must  wait  several  weeks  before  he  can 
cultivate  it.  After  a  number  of  cultivations,  he  must 
wait  again  while  nature  develops  and  ripens  the  corn. 
When  the  corn  is  ready,  the  farmer  again  gives  it  his 
attention  and  prepares  it  for  use  or  for  market.  No 
two  of  these  processes  can  possibly  be  carried  on  at 
the  same  time,  owing  to  the  time  element  necessary, 
and  the  corn  grower  must  use  his  own  labor  and  that 
of  his  hired  help  at  many  different  tasks  between  the 
corn-growing  operations.  In  like  manner,  each  worker 
must  perform  a  variety  of  tasks  each  day,  such  as  the 
caring  for  and  feeding  of  horses  and  other  stock,  the 
harnessing  of  teams,  the  milking  of  cows,  the  care  and 
operation  of  machinery,  the  driving  of  an  automobile, 
field  work,  fence  repairing, — not  always  all  on  the 
same  day  but  all  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks. 

A  much  larger  percentage  of  farm  workers  than  of 
urban  workers  are  self-employed.  Sixty-two  and  a 
half  per  cent  of  the  farmers  in  this  country  are  farm 
owners.  This  means  that  over  half  of  them  are  both 
capitalists  and  laborers.  Half  of  the  workers  on 
farms  belong  to  the  farmers'  families  —  a  situation 
very  different  from  that  in  cities,  where  members  of 
the  employers'  families  are  seldom  found  as  workers  in 
their  establishments.  The  distinction  between  the 
employing  and  the  employed  classes  is  sharp  in  the 
cities ;  but  is  not  so  sharp  in  most  rural  districts. 
Urban  industry  is  carried  on  by  a  relatively  small 
group  of  capital-controlling  employers,  a  relatively 
large  group  of  employees,  and  a  considerable  middle 


URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  25 

group  of  salaried  managers  and  superintendents.  In 
agriculture,  on  the  other  hand,  the  capitalist,  or  land 
owning  group,  includes  a  much  higher  percentage  of 
the  total  number  of  people  than  the  city  capitalist 
class  does  of  the  city  population  ;  while  the  hired  farm 
laborers  are  a  correspondingly  smaller  proportion  of  the 
entire  rural  population  than  are  the  city  laborers  of  the 
city  population.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  rural 
capitalist  is  generally  a  capitalist  only  in  the  strictly 
technical  sense  and  has  little  in  common  with  the  in- 
dustrial or  corporation  magnate.  He  is  himself  a 
hand  worker  and  has  many  of  the  sympathies  and 
points  of  view  of  the  manual  worker.  The  typical 
farmer  is  an  independent  worker,  capable  and  resource- 
ful. He  knows  weather,  soils,  machinery,  plants, 
animals,  birds,  bees,  and  insects.  He  knows  how  to 
plow,  sow,  till,  reap,  prune,  buy,  and  sell.  He  paints, 
builds,  plans,  and  executes.  He  is  both  a  mental  and 
a  manual  worker.  He  deals  with  the  forces  of  nature 
more  than  with  economic  and  social  forces,  but  he  must 
have  good  business  sense,  for  his  financial  success 
depends  upon  wisdom  in  determining  which  crops 
his  soil  and  available  labor  will  raise,  and  for  which  of 
these  he  will  find  a  ready  market.  He  deals  less  with 
other  men  than  the  city  business  man  does,  but  the 
business  transactions  in  which  he  participates  are  of 
vital  importance,  for  they  determine  whether  his  work 
will  or  will  not  bring  him  an  adequate  income.  He 
may  not  need  so  much  selling  skill  as  an  urban  busi- 
ness man,  but  he  none  the  less  needs  good  judgment 
in  his  transactions. 

The    location    of    cities    is   determined    by    factors 


26  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

favorable  to  industrial  development,  such  as  natural 
harbors,  waterways,  railways,  accessibility  of  raw 
materials,  and  labor  supply.  Natural  harbors  have 
always  been  good  locations  for  cities,  and  never  more 
so  than  at  the  present  time,  because  they  are  bound 
to  become  both  shipping  and  railway  centers.  It  was 
inevitable  that  cities  should  be  built  where  Boston, 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Buffalo,  Chicago,  Detroit, 
Duluth,  and  San  Francisco  now  stand.  But  harbors 
are  not  the  only  transportation  advantages  which  lead 
to  the  establishment  and  growth  of  large  cities.  As 
in  ancient  times  cities  sprang  up  where  caravan  routes 
crossed,  so  Kansas  City,  Omaha,  Denver,  and  many 
other  American  cities  owe  their  rapid  development  to 
the  transcontinental  railway  systems.  Other  cities, 
like  Pittsburgh,  Birmingham,  Minneapolis,  Chicago, 
and  Grand  Rapids,  have  grown  up  largely  because  of 
their  accessibility  to  the  raw  material  used  in  some 
particular  industry.  Still  others  have  been  favored  by 
a  particular  supply  of  labor.  New  York  City,  for 
example,  has  obtained  control  of  the  ready-made  cloth- 
ing business  largely  because  of  the  supply  of  cheap 
immigrant  labor  constantly  entering  the  city. 

Similarly,  within  the  individual  city,  the  location 
of  specific  plants  or  industries  is  frequently  determined 
by  the  presence  or  absence  of  particular  advantages. 
The  flour  and  saw  mills,  for  instance,  are  found  on  the 
river  bank,  where  they  can  use  water  power ;  iron  foun- 
dries, in  the  outer  part  of  the  city  where  land  values 
permit  a  large  area  for  the  individual  plant ;  the  plants 
which  manufacture  foodstuffs,  along  street  car  lines 
where  the  passing  of  throngs  of  people  furnishes  natural 


URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  27 

advertising  ;  and  the  retail  stores,  where  car  lines  cross 
and  there  is  easy  access  for  a  maximum  number  of  people. 

Inasmuch  as  farming  is  an  industry  made  up  of 
many  enterprises,  land  that  will  not  grow  good  crops 
will  serve,  often,  for  grazing  or  for  such  an  enterprise 
as  poultry  raising.  A  means  of  transportation,  good 
highways,  an  available  market,  and  a  sufficient  supply 
of  labor  are,  of  course,  essential  to  successful  farming 
under  present  conditions.  But,  in  any  case,  a  farm 
must  have  soil  that  will  grow  marketable  produce,  a 
supply  of  labor,  and  an  available  market.  A  city,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  more  dependent  on  its  environs  than 
is  a  farm.  To  progress  industrially,  a  city  must  have 
adequate  transportation  facilities,  a  labor  supply  suf- 
ficiently diversified  to  meet  the  needs  of  all  its  in- 
dustries, an  easily  obtainable  supply  of  raw  materials 
for  its  particular  industries,  and  a  sufficient  and  con- 
stant food  supply. 

The  city  is  quite  as  complex  socially  as  it  is  in- 
dustrially. All  sorts,  conditions,  and  races  of  people 
are  to  be  found  in  large  industrial  centers.  Agri- 
cultural districts  in  America,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
apt  to  be  more  homogeneous  in  both  racial  and  social 
types.  This  is  not  true  of  the  South,  of  course,  where 
the  color  line  appears  in  economic  as  well  as  in  social 
class  lines ;  nor  of  certain  districts  in  the  northern 
and  western  states,  where  sharp  racial  lines  separate 
the  farm  owners  from  the  farm  laborers.  But  a 
great  variety  of  races  and  nationalities  is  seldom 
found  in  one  agricultural  community,  and  the 
typical  American  condition  is  one  of  homogeneity 
and  substantial  equality  rather  than  the  reverse. 


28  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

There  are  many  "  colonies  "  of  immigrants  in  our 
agricultural  as  well  as  in  our  urban  districts,  and  these 
create  a  distinct  and  important  national  problem. 
Such  communities  are  fields  in  which  our  teachers  can 
perform  great  service  by  bringing  to  these  new  Ameri- 
cans, who  come  to  our  shores  full  of  hope  and  enthu- 
siasm for  this  new  land  and  who,  too  often,  find  the 
reality  far  below  their  dreams,  some  vision  of  our  best 
achievements,  aims,  and  aspirations.  The  steady  and 
rising  tide  of  immigration  from  the  less  developed 
countries  of  eastern  and  southern  Europe  challenges 
our  teachers  to  redoubled  effort.  Settlements  of  Ital- 
ians, Poles,  Croatians,  Ruthenians,  and  many  other 
eastern,  southern,  and  southeastern  European  peoples 
in  many  country  districts  call  for  intelligent  endeavor 
on  the  part  of  the  rural  teacher  to  weld  a  foreign-born 
but  sturdy  and  promising  population  into  an  American 
unity ;  repeating  the  problem  which  we  faced  and  al- 
lowed to  solve  itself  in  earlier  years,  in  the  many  rural 
colonies  of  peoples  from  northwestern  Europe,  such  as 
the  Germans  and  Swedes. 

The  difference  in  the  distribution  of  wealth  forms 
another  contrast  between  the  city  and  the  rural  district. 
There  is  a  wider  range  of  difference  between  the  richest 
and  poorest  classes  in  the  cities  than  in  the  country. 
Multimillionaires  are  not  found  in  typical  farming 
districts,  while  extreme  poverty  is  likewise  uncommon 
on  the  land.  Farmers  are  middle-class  people  on  a 
fairly  uniform  economic  plane.  In  the  United  States, 
one  seldom  sees  great  wealth  concentrated  in  one  rural 
family.  City  capitalists,  playing  at  farming,  using  it 
merely  as  a  diversion,  and  spending  only  a  few  weeks 


URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  29 

each  summer  on  their  country  estates,  are  not  rural 
people  in  the  usual  and  accepted  sense  of  the  term. 
Agriculturists,  on  the  whole,  all  belong  to  the  same 
social  class  and  respond  to  the  same  economic,  social, 
and  cultural  influences. 

Cities,  large  and  small,  are  centers  of  recreation. 
One  of  the  strong  attractions  which  cities  hold  out 
to  the  youth  of  rural  districts  is  found  in  the  chance  for 
"  fun  "  which  they  offer.  The  lack  of  recreation  is 
one  of  the  serious  defects  of  most  rural  communities 
and  presents  one  of  the  gravest  problems  confronting 
those  interested  in  rural  welfare  and  development. 
The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  differences  in  edu- 
cational and  religious  advantages  between  town  and 
country.1 

The  political  situation  is  likewise  different  in  town 
and  country.  The  complexity  of  city  politics  is  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  simple  machinery  of  the  rural 
district.  But  rural  politics,  though  comparatively 
simple,  are  not  entirely  free  from  the  graft  and  in- 
efficiency which  have  so  often  disgraced  our  cities. 
County  politics  have  in  many  localities  been  a.  by- 
word for  graft  and  inefficiency.  There  is  a  big  political 
task  before  democracy  in  rural  America  as  well  as  in 
urban  America.  But  rural  politics  are  simplified  by 
the  facts  that  the  "  plums  "  in  county  politics  are  few, 
and  that  the  farmer  is  never  dependent  upon  an  alder- 
man or  other  henchman  for  a  job.  His  neighbors  know 
his  political  faith  ;  and  he  votes  singly,  as  an  individual, 
rather  than  as  a  hidden  unit  in  a  "  block  "  of  voters. 

1  The  educational  contrasts  are  more  fully  discussed  in  Chapter  VI, 
and  the  religious  in  Chapter  IV 


30  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

Good  school  work  in  history,  civics,  and  economics 
will  go  far  toward  eliminating  from  our  rural  districts 
the  political  weaknesses  that  have  existed  there. 

The  Mutual  Dependence  of  City  and  Rural  Dis- 
tricts. —  No  nation  to-day  lives  unto  itself.  Much 
less  does  any  section  or  industrial  class  of  a  nation  so 
live.  In  colonial  days,  every  farm  was  nearly  self- 
sufficing.  In  an  article  published  in  The  American 
Museum  in  1787,  an  old  farmer  writes :  "  At  this  time 
my  farm  gave  me  and  my  whole  family  a  good  living 
on  the  produce  of  it,  and  left  me  one  year  with  another 
hundred  and  fifty  silver  dollars,  for  I  never  spent  more 
than  ten  dollars  a  year  which  was  for  salt,  nails,  and  the 
like.  Nothing  to  eat,  drink,  or  wear  was  bought, 
as  my  farm  provided  all."  It  is  still  true  that  the  coun- 
try depends  much  less  upon  the  city  than  the  city 
does  upon  the  country,  but  it  is  also  true  that  farmers 
have  become  more  and  more  dependent  upon  the  city 
for  manufactured  goods  during  recent  years,  and  no 
modern  farm  can  carry  on  its  work  without  the  use 
of  tools,  machinery,  and  facilities  which  it  can  obtain 
only  from  the  city.  An  occasional  trip  to  town  may 
even  yet  supply  the  "  store  goods  "  necessary  to  the 
usual  farm  home,  but  no  farmer,  without  the  assist- 
ance of  city  manufactured  equipment,  can  now  hope 
to  compete  in  the  market  place.  It  is  probably  true 
that  in  case  of  extreme  necessity,  the  country  could 
dispense  for  months  with  town  goods,  while  the 
cities  could  not  survive  a  week  without  the  food  sup- 
plies of  the  country.  But  this  does  not  remove  the 
fact  that  there  is  interdependence  of  city  and  farm. 
Moreover,  the  increasing  dependence  of  the  farmer 


URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  31 

upon  ready-made  goods  is  obliging  him  to  strive  for  a 
larger  cash  income  than  heretofore. 

The  fact  that  goods  leaving  the  farm  are  sold  at 
wholesale  prices,  while  those  coming  to  the  farm  are 
bought  at  retail  prices  is  a  vital  one  in  the  economics 
of  agriculture,  and  must  be  borne  in  mind  when  dis- 
cussing business  cooperation  among  farmers. 

The  interdependence  of  town  and  country  is  not 
confined,  however,  to  material  things.  An  ever 
increasing  number  of  farm  boys  and  girls  are  going 
to  town  and  city  for  higher  education,  and  either  return 
bringing  new  habits  and  ideals  from  the  metropolis, 
or  else  become  city  dwellers.  Country  life  develops 
strong,  reliant,  resourceful  individuals  whom  the 
cities  are  constantly  absorbing ;  urban  life  produces 
new  material  improvements,  new  ideas,  and  new 
modes  of  life  which  gradually  overflow  the  city  limits. 

The  city  is  tending  more  and  more  to  dominate 
the  thought  and  action  of  our  nation.  New  York  City 
is  the  financial  center  of  this  country.  Public  opinion 
is  educated,  molded,  and  controlled  by  our  urban 
press.  Most  of  our  literary  productions  dealing  with 
economic,  social,  political,  and  educational  questions 
portray  city  conditions  and  the  conceptions  of  city 
people  along  these  lines.  With  but  few  exceptions,  our 
most  astute  politicians  are  products  of  municipal 
political  training.  The  majority  of  our  largest  and 
most  influential  colleges  and  universities  are  located 
in  or  near  large  cities.  City-trained  men  with  city 
ideas  are  educating  the  future  legislators,  judges,  at- 
torneys, and  other  administrators  of  our  state  and 
federal  affairs.  The  nation's  great  hope  for  the  foster- 


32  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

ing  of  its  rural  interests  rests  with  the  state  universities 
of  the  Middle  West,  where  rural  thought  and  influences 
are  yet  predominant,  and  where  agriculture  as  an  in- 
dustry is  thoroughly  respected.  In  this  portion  of  the 
country,  as  in  the  early  days  of  our  nation's  history, 
the  majority  of  the  legislators  and  leaders  are  either 
country-born,  or  have  sufficient  appreciation  of  rural 
interests  and  life  to  give  recognition  to  agricultural  wel- 
fare. But  on  the  whole  while  present  conditions  con- 
tinue, we  may  expect  the  urban  element  of  our  popula- 
tion to  be  the  controlling  element  in  our  national  life. 
The  Rural  Worker  Should  Know  the  Real  Condi- 
tions of  the  City.  —  In  view  of  the  foregoing  facts,  we 
must  expect  that  the  predominance  of  the  city  will 
continue,  and  that  the  interrelations  between  the  city 
and  the  rural  district  will  increase.  There  will  be  no 
danger  to  the  national  welfare  in  this  condition  of 
city  predominance  if  our  leaders  appreciate  the  rela- 
tive value  of  our  rural  population  to  the  nation  as  a 
whole,  and  if  rural  interests  are  carefully  and  faithfully 
administered.  But  the  interrelations  of  the  city  and 
the  country  must  be  made  more  wholesome,  and  mutu- 
ally stimulating.  It  is  quite  true  that  all  rural  young 
people  will  not  care  to  stay  on  the  farm  any  more 
than  that  all  city  youth  care  to  engage  in  city  occupa- 
tions ;  but  the  over-drainage  of  the  country  by  the 
city  must  be  checked  and  kept  within  a  limit  safe  for 
the  country  and  the  nation  alike.  As  rural  conditions 
improve  and  people  become  more  prosperous  and  better 
educated,  there  will  be  a  gradual  leveling  in  the  purely 
cultural  aspects  of  rural  life  which  will  go  far  toward 
meeting  these  necessities.  With  the  passing  of  years, 


URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  33 

we  hope  that  country  people  will  take  pride  in  devel- 
oping estates,  not  on  a  large,  but  rather  on  a  small  or  a 
medium  scale,  such  as  a  cultivated  taste  and  a  sense  of 
the  beautiful  can  achieve  with  moderate  means. 

The  teacher  who  appreciates  the  tremendous  re- 
sponsibility which  her  work  imposes  upon  her  will 
seek  to  lead  in  this  development  by  helping  rural 
people  to  see  the  possibilities  in  rural  life  and  the 
ways  in  which  it  can  excel  that  of  larger  communities. 
The  rural  teacher  should  be  able  to  make  clear  to  the 
boy  and  girl  dissatisfied  with  country  life  and  ignorantly 
anxious  to  get  to  the  city,  that  the  average  rural 
family  can  live  in  much  greater  comfort  and  inde- 
pendence than  can  the  city  family  of  equal  means ; 
while  the  youth  who  go  from  the  country  to  the  city 
only  too  often  become  servants,  policemen,  street  car 
conductors,  or  fill  other  subordinate  positions,  from 
which  they  would  be  glad  to  return  to  their  comfort- 
able homes.  In  order  to  advise  farm  children  and 
their  parents  wisely,  the  rural  teacher  must  know  city 
conditions  well  enough  to  be  able  to  dispel  effectively 
the  glamour  in  which  the  country  boy  and  girl  see  the 
city;  to  point  out  truthfully  its  difficulties,  require- 
ments, and  opportunities ;  to  inspire  a  living,  working 
faith  in  the  value  of  rural  life ;  and  to  enable  them  to 
choose  in  the  light  of  understanding  that  sphere  best 
suited  to  their  abilities  and  ambitions. 


QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 

(These  questions  will  suffice  for  at  least  two  reading  circle  or 
class  meetings.  Some  of  them  can  be  used  as  research  problems,  if 
desired.) 


34  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

1.  What  is  the  fundamental  difference  between  the  city  and 
the  rural  district  ?     How  long  could  cities  exist  without  the  products 
of  the  rural  districts  ? 

2.  Name  some  general  ways  in  which  the  city  and  the  rural 
district  differ.     Can  these  differences  ever  be  overcome  or  will  they 
always  exist  ? 

3.  Name  some  of  the  great  problems  with  which  cities  have 
always  had  to  deal.     Are  these  problems  inherently  characteristic 
of  the  city,  or  can  they  be  solved  ? 

4.  Name  some  of  the  great  problems  of  the  rural  district. 
Are  these  inherent  or  can  they  be  solved  ? 

5.  State  the  causes  of  the  growth  of  cities.     Will  our  American 
cities  continue  to  grow  ?     Could  our  nation  prosper  if  three-fourths 
of  our  people  were  to  live  and  work  in  the  cities  ?     Are  there  ways 
by  which  the  undue  growth  of  cities  can  be  checked? 

6.  The  government  classification  of  our  population.  How  would 
you  classify  the  population  of  your  school  district  ?    Of  your  State  ? 

7.  The  classification  of  our  centers  of  population.     Classify 
the  centers  of  population  in  your  county. 

8.  Make  a  list  of  the  large  cities  of  your  State  and  try  to  see 
why  each  is  located  where  it  is.     Why  is  your  county  seat  located 
where  it  is? 

9.  In  how  many  ways  is  the  rural  district  related  to  the  city  ? 
Will  these  relations  continue  to  exist? 

10.  Why  should  the  rural  teacher  know  something  of  the  con- 
ditions in  cities  ? 

11.  Name  some  influences  that  lure  young  people  from  the 
farms  to  the  city. 

12.  Picture  to  yourself  an  ideal  location  for  a  farm.     For  a  city. 

13.  What  do  you  understand  by  the  division  of  labor  in  manu- 
facturing?   Why  is  such  a  division  not  possible  on  an  average- 
sized  farm  ?     Is  it  possible  on  a  large  country  estate  ? 

14.  What  do  you  understand  by  an  industrial  class?     A  social 
class? 

15.  Do  you  know  of  a  rural  community  that  has  at  any  time 
fallen  into  political  disrepute?     If  so,  what  were  the  reasons  for 
its  doing  so  ? 

1 6.  Why  do  cities  have  to  fight  constantly  against  political 


URBAN  AND  RURAL  DISTRICTS  35 

corruption?     Name  some  of  the  conditions  in  cities  that  are  con- 
ducive to  political  corruption. 

17.  Why  is  it  possible  for  cities  to  exert  a  predominating  in- 
fluence in  such  matters  as  literature,   art,   music,   religion,   and 
education?     In  what  ways  does  your  nearest  large  city  influence 
your  rural  community  ? 

1 8.  Why  does  the  rural  teacher's  position  offer  so  splendid  an 
opportunity  for  leadership  ? 

19.  What  do  you  understand  by  social  psychology? 

20.  Wherein  does  the  social  psychology  of  the  city  differ  from 
that  of  the  rural  district  ? 

REFERENCES 
ANDERSON,  WILBERT  L.     The  Country  Town,  Chapters  II,  III,  IV. 

Baker  &  Taylor  Company,  New  York,  1911. 
BAILEY,  LIBERTY  HYDE.     The  Country  Life  Movement  in  the  United 

States,  pp.   14-20;    31-43.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New 

York,  1911. 
BUTTERFIELD,  KENYON  L.     Chapters  in  Rural  Progress,  Chapter 

II,  pp.  17-22.     University  of  Chicago  Press,  Chicago,  1908. 
CARVER,  THOMAS  NIXON.     Principles  of  Rural  Economics,  Chapters 

I,  PP-  I3~2^t    HI,  pp.  117-130.    Ginn  and  Company,  Bos- 
ton, 1911. 
FISKE,   GEORGE  W.     The   Challenge  of  the   Country,  Chapter  I. 

Association  Press,  New  York,  1912. 
GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.     Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapter  IV. 

The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1913. 
GRAYSON,  DAVID.    Adventures  in  Contentment.     Doubleday,  Page 

&  Company,  Garden  City,  N.  Y.,  1907. 
HOWE,  FREDERICK  C.     The  City :  the  Hope  of  Democracy,  Chapters 

I,  II.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York,  1905. 
Ross,  EDWARD  ALSWORTH.     What  is  America,  Chapters  VI,  VII. 

Century  Company,  New  York,  1919. 
TAYLOR,  HENRY  C.    Agricultural  Economics,  Chapter  IX.    The 

Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1919. 
TOWNE,  EZRA  T.     Social  Problems,  Chapters  I,  II.     The  Macmillan 

Company,  New  York,  1916. 
VOGT,  PAUL  L.     Introduction  to  Rural  Sociology,  Chapters  VII, 

XX-XXV.     D.  Appleton  &  Company,  New  York,  1917. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  TO  THE  RURAL 
COMMUNITY 

"  Self-knowledge,  self- reverence,  self-control, 

these  three 
Lift  men  to  sovereign  power." 

So  speaks  the  poet-philosopher.  But  country  people 
have  not  adequately  known  either  the  possibilities  of 
rural  life,  or  the  extent  to  which  they  have  failed  to 
attain  them.  They  have  not,  in  the  great  majority 
of  rural  communities,  taken  inventory  of  their  com- 
munity life,  nor  learned  to  direct  it  into  the  channels 
of  progressive  evolution.  They  have  lacked  that  "  self- 
knowledge  "  which  is  essential  to  the  best  progress  of 
the  rural  folk  of  America. 

A  survey,  or  study,  of  the  community  by  the  people 
living  in  it  will  be  found  to  be  a  profitable  undertaking. 
It  will  reveal  facts  about  the  community  which  were 
either  unknown  or  the  importance  of  which  was  not 
recognized.  It  will  pave  the  way  for  community 
undertakings.  It  will  direct  the  people's  attention 
to  the  real  causes  instead  of  the  assumed  causes  of  un- 
desirable conditions  which  obtain  among  them.1  It 

1  During  1918,  a  town  in  central  Missouri  suffered  a  severe  epidemic 
of  typhoid  fever.  Hundreds  were  stricken  and  scores  died.  It  was 
during  the  war,  and  the  excited  people  immediately  supposed  that  the 
water  supply  had  been  poisoned  by  German  agents.  A  few  piously 
declared  the  epidemic  an  "act  of  God."  The  physicians  of  the  town, 
however,  advised  a  sanitary  survey,  which  discovered  that  the  town 
sewage  was  leaking  into  the  water  mains.  The  assumed  cause  was 
German  agents.  The  real  cause  was  defective  sewer  pipes. 

36 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  37 

will  reveal  to  the  neighborhood  needs  of  which  it  was 
not  fully  aware,  and  perhaps  suggest  the  means  of 
satisfying  those  needs. 

Kinds  of  Survey.  —  A  survey  may  be  either  practi- 
cal or  scientific,  and  in  either  case  may  be  compre- 
hensive or  partial.  By  far  the  most  common  and 
generally  useful  type  of  survey  is  the  practical  survey, 
which  has  for  its  aim  the  immediate  improvement  of 
some  particular  phase  of  community  life.  Its  method 
may  be  scientific ;  but  its  object  is  the  solution  of  a 
pressing  problem.  An  orchard  survey  made  for  the 
purpose  of  ascertaining  why  trees  are  dying  in  a  given 
district  would  be  obviously  practical.  Immediately 
practical,  also,  was  the  search  for  the  origin  of  the 
typhoid  epidemic  in  central  Missouri.  A  scientific 
survey  aims  not  to  relieve  some  critical  situation, 
but  rather  to  contribute  to  general  knowledge.  It 
makes  a  systematic  and  accurate  study  of  some  com- 
munity or  condition,  and  endeavors  to  deduce  from  the 
facts  ascertained  scientific  conclusions.  The  careful 
studies  which  have  been  made  of  selected  townships 
by  certain  agricultural  colleges  are  of  this  type.  The 
results  of  such  a  scientific  survey  may  be,  and  of  course 
should  be,  put  to  practical  use,  but  the  motive  for 
undertaking  it  is  technical  and  scholarly,  and  the 
survey  is  made  by  the  research  student,  or  specialist. 

The  practical  survey  is  often  partial  rather  than 
comprehensive.  It  examines  only  one  or  a  few  of  the 
different  phases  of  community  life  in  order  to  reach 
a  conclusion  on  some  particular  point.  Partial  sur- 
veys might  deal,  for  instance,  with  such  subjects  as 
the  nationalities  and  standards  of  life  represented  in  a 


38  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

community ;  the  creameries  of  a  county ;  the  crops 
raised  in  a  township ;  the  highway  conditions  of  a 
section  of  a  state ;  or  the  educational  conditions  that 
obtain  in  a  school  district.  Sometimes  it  is  under- 
taken to  enlist  public  support  for  measures  which  a 
part  of  the  community  are  advocating,  or  to  "  back 
up  "  the  efforts  of  some  public  official  who  needs  and 
deserves  public  support. 

A  comprehensive  survey,  practical  or  scientific,  con- 
siders all  the  essential  facts  about  a  community  and 
all  phases  of  its  life.  Such  a  survey  covers  the  physio- 
graphical,  industrial,  social,  religious,  political,  sani- 
tary, hygienic,  aesthetic,  and  psychological  conditions 
of  the  area  studied.  For  example,  the  rural  surveys 
made  by  the  Massachusetts  Federation  of  Churches, 
the  Massachusetts  State  Agricultural  College,  and  the 
Federal  Children's  Bureau  go  into  such  detail  on  each 
aspect  of  farm  life  that  as  many  as  four  hundred 
questions  are  sometimes  asked  in  a  single  question- 
naire. Such  elaborate  investigations  are,  of  course, 
not  always  necessary  to  secure  a  comprehensive  knowl- 
edge of  a  given  community. 

Sometimes,  before  making  an  intensive  survey,  a 
community  makes  a  preparatory  survey  which  might 
be  classified  as  a  "  pathfinder  "  or  "  preliminary  " 
survey.  A  preliminary  survey  aims  at  a  quick  diag- 
nosis of  local  conditions  and  enables  the  investigators 
to  prepare  better  detailed  plans  for  the  more  thorough 
undertaking. 

Often  a  short  survey,  without  the  use  of  detailed 
questionnaires,  reveals  enough  local  facts  to  permit 
the  planning  of  an  intelligent  program  for  community 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  39 

advance  over  a  short  period,  as  from  one  to  five  years. 
Surveys  conducted  for  such  a  purpose  must  aim  to  dis- 
cover the  assets  and  liabilities  of  the  community,  and 
the  forces  with  which  to  build,  as  well  as  what  to  build. 

The  Development  of  the  Idea.  -  -  The  social  survey  in 
the  modern  sense  began  with  the  investigation  which 
Charles  Booth  made  of  the  poor  in  London.1  Mr. 
Booth  devoted  many  years  and  considerable  money 
to  this  inquiry  into  general  conditions  under  which  the 
poorer  classes  lived.  The  data  used  for  his  report, 
which  appeared  in  sixteen  volumes  from  1891  to  1903, 
were  derived  from  the  records  of  school  inspectors, 
from  information  gathered  by  charity  workers,  and 
from  researches  made  by  Mr.  Booth  himself. 

A  very  elaborate  community  survey  was  made  in 
the  city  of  Pittsburgh  in  1907-8  by  Mr.  Paul  U.  Kellogg 
and  a  corps  of  collaborators.  The  people,  the  work, 
and  the  cultural  conditions  of  the  Pittsburgh  steel 
district  were  all  carefully  investigated  by  trained 
social  workers.2  This  survey  not  only  served  as  the 
basis  for  a  new  educational  and  philanthropic  program 
in  the  city  of  Pittsburgh,  but  stimulated  other  com- 
munities to  similar  self-examination.  Buffalo,  Spring- 
field, and  many  other  cities  have  surveyed  either  the 
whole  community  or  some  particular  portion  of  it. 

1  See  BOOTH'S  Life  and  Labor  of  the  People  of  London. 

2  The  volumes  in  "the  Pittsburgh  survey  are  : 
BUTLER,  ELIZABETH  B.     Women  and  the  Trades. 

BYINGTON,  MARGARET  F.    Homestead:  The  Household  of  a  Mill  Town. 
COMMONS,  JOHN  R.  (and  others).     The  Pittsburgh  District.    Symposium 

edited  and  in  part  written  by  John  R.  Commons. 
EASTMAN,  CRYSTAL.     Work  Accidents  and  the  Law. 
FITCH,  JOHN  A.     The  Steel  Workers. 
KELLOGG,  PAUL  U.    Pittsburgh:  The  Gist  of  the  Survey. 


40  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

Agricultural  colleges  and  other  agencies  have  made 
intensive  studies  of  rural  communities.  Churches  and 
schools  and  business,  political,  and  welfare  organiza- 
tions have  likewise  found  the  survey  an  important 
means  of  analyzing  their  problems  and  attaining 
greater  efficiency.1 

The  Educational  Survey.  —  The  usefulness  of  the 
social  survey  as  a  means  of  community  progress  may 
be  illustrated  by  an  examination  of  the  results  attained 
by  educational  surveys.  Between  1897  and  1914 
many  school  surveys  were  made  in  Belgium,  England, 
Ireland,  Scotland,  France,  Germany,  Austria,  Sweden, 
Switzerland,  New  South  Wales,  New  Zealand,  and 
the  United  States.  Many  of  these  have  led  to  valu- 
able results.  Scales  and  other  tests  for  measuring  the 
educational  progress  of  individual  pupils,  and  stand- 
ards for  the  comparing  of  schools  and  school  systems, 
have  made  the  facts  obtained  in  different  localities 
comparable. 

More  than  thirty  educational  surveys  were  made 
in  the  United  States  previous  to  1916  ;  and  the  surveys 
completed  or  in  progress  during  1919  brought  the 
total  up  to  eighty-one.  One  of  the  earliest  of  these 
was  the  study  of  the  Chicago  school  system  by  the 
Educational  Commission  of  Chicago  in  1897.  This 
commission  was  appointed  by  the  Mayor,  and  repre- 
sented the  City  Council,  the  Board  of  Education, 
and  the  general  public.  An  important  educational 
survey  was  conducted  in  Cleveland  in  1906  by  a  com- 
mission appointed  by  the  Board  of  Education  of  that 
city.  This  commission  investigated  the  government, 

1  See  appendix  to  this  chapter  for  a  list  of  notable  surveys. 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  41 

supervision,  and  courses  of  study  in  the  public  schools 
of  the  city. 

Twenty-seven  states  have  made  state-wide  surveys 
of  their  educational  systems  since  1907,  and  a  number 
of  other  states  have  made  partial  surveys.  The 
studies  made  of  the  secondary  schools  of  Wisconsin 
in  1912,  of  the  rural  and  village  schools  of  Colorado  in 
1914,  and  of  the  vocational  schools  of  Indiana  in  1916 
are  examples  of  this  type. 

School  surveys  have  been  of  three  rather  distinct 
types.  Some  try  to  measure  the  efficiency  of  the 
schools  in  terms  of  child-development.  Others  seek 
to  determine  what  part  of  the  technical  work  of  the 
mechanical  or  other  occupations  can  be  taught  in  the 
public  schools.  The  third  type  endeavors  to  measure 
the  efficiency  of  schools  in  terms  of  general  industrial 
preparation.  This  involves  an  investigation  of  the 
trades  to  determine  what  further  vocational  training 
can  be  offered  in  the  schools  that  will  correlate  with 
actual  industrial  life  and  to  discover  the  limitations  of 
industry  as  an  educative  force.  In  other  words,  the 
investigation  covers  both  the  schools  and  the  economic 
world  which  surrounds  them,  whether  industrial  or 
agricultural,  and  aims  to  effect  a  closer  cooperation 
between  the  industries  and  the  schools  of  the  com- 
munity. 

The  primary  object  of  all  these  investigations  has 
been  to  help  those  in  charge  of  our  educational  system 
to  utilize  all  that  is  good  in  the  present  system,  to 
discard  what  is  defective,  and  to  employ  new  methods 
where  needed.  Their  influence  is  already  felt  in  the 
rating  and  standardizing  of  the  school  systems  of 


42  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

different  states  and  cities.  Excellencies  and  defi- 
ciencies have  been  sought  out  and  made  known  to  the 
country  at  large  as  well  as  to  the  community  directly 
concerned.  The  published  reports  have  been  an 
excellent  means  for  the  molding  of  public  opinion  and 
have  encouraged  a  constructive  attitude  toward  edu- 
cation. Backed  by  popular  knowledge,  scientific 
methods  are  driving  indifference  and  waste  put  of  our 
school  systems. 

The  results  attained  in  the  educational  world  through 
careful  school  surveys  are  but  typical  of  the  benefits 
attained  in  many  other  fields  of  activity  through  sur- 
veys. They  are  one  of  the  best  means  for  producing 
enlightened  public  opinion  and  stimulating  public 
action. 

A  survey,  of  whatever  kind  and  in  whatever  type  of 
community,  should  be  made  a  community  enterprise. 
Individuals  or  groups  should  never  forget  that  in 
America  social  progress  comes  through  the  good  judg- 
ment and  will  of  the  majority  of  the  people.  Much 
of  the  actual  work  in  a  survey  may  have  to  be  done  by 
specialists,  but  when  their  report  is  completed,  public 
opinion  will  decide  how  many  of  their  recommendations 
shall  become  effective.  It  is  the  right  of  the  whole 
community  to  participate  in  the  undertaking  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end.  When  the  American  people,  or 
any  section  of  them,  clearly  understand  what  is  needed 
and  how  to  attain  it,  we  can  usually  depend  upon 
them  to  do  their  best.  The  thing  which  retards  prog- 
ress is  in  most  cases  a  lack  of  popular  understanding 
of  what  needs  to  be  done  and  how  to  do  it. 

Nearly    every    community    survey    has    discovered 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  43 

that  one  of  the  most  important  needs  of  the  city 
or  the  rural  district  studied  has  been  a  better  school 
system.  In  many  cases  it  has  resulted  in  larger  and 
better  schools.  This  is  an  important  forward  step. 
The  rallying  of  a  community  for  the  improvement 
of  its  schools  is  a  stimulus  to  more  intelligent  democ- 
racy. It  is  an  educator  of  the  civic  conscience.  It 
leads  to  immediate  cooperative  action  on  a  community- 
wide  basis,  and  citizens  are  taught  to  think  in  terms 
of  community  welfare  instead  of  simply  in  terms  of 
private  welfare.  It  is  often  the  means  of  causing 
many  individuals  to  see  for  the  first  time  the  relation- 
ship of  the  various  component  parts  of  the  community. 
The  currents  and  cross-currents  of  community  life, 
once  only  a  maze,  are  now  untangled  and  become  in- 
telligible. The  welfare  and  progress  of  the  entire 
community  becomes  the  popular  aim,  and  all  classes 
become  more  united  in  the  ideal  of  a  better  common 
life.  New  local  leaders,  drawn  from  the  different 
classes,  are  discovered.  No  other  means  can  so  easily 
produce  a  unified  interest  for  community  betterment. 

This  is  exactly  the  result  at  which  a  survey  should 
aim.  It  is  designed  to  arouse  community  action. 
The  facts  it  reveals  are  of  little  value  unless  they 
crystallize  public  sentiment  and  result  in  the  adoption 
of  a  definite  policy  and  program  for  the  community. 

When  once  a  community  is  characterized  by  an 
educated  and  enlightened  public  opinion,  it  begins  to 
plan  its  future  more  carefully  and  wisely.  Its  people 
begin  to  understand  that  civic  planning  does  not  imply 
merely  flower  beds,  lily  ponds,  landscape  gardening, 
gigantic  public  works,  and  prodigious  expenses.  They 


44  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

realize  that  it  means  foresight  and  preparation  for  the- 
protection,  welfare,  and  happiness  of  all  classes  of  the 
community. 

But  community  unity,  a  social  consciousness  in  the 
minds  of  the  citizens,  and  intelligent,  broad-spirited 
public  opinion  will  not  be  attained  in  any  comrfiunify 
simply  by  a  community  survey,  no  matter  how  efficient 
such  a  survey  may  be.  It  represents  only  a  starting 
point.  It  furnishes  material  ^which  public-spirited 
citizens  can  use  for  the  formation' and  guidance  of  public 
opinion.  It  is  a  tool,  not  a  panacea. 

Surveys,  then,  have  very  generally  accomplished 
two  definite  results :  first,  they  have  proved  an  edu- 
cational force  and  have  focused  public  opinion  on 
certain  definite  local  conditions ;  second,  they  have 
supplied  the  areas  surveyed  with  a  comprehensive, 
unified,  well  worked-out  program  for  social  advance. 

The  Purpose  of  a  Survey.  —  Neither  personal  curi- 
osity, nor  muck-raking,  nor  "  exposure  "  can  justify 
an  inquiry  into  the  lives  of  people  such  as  a  survey 
usually  necessitates.  The%  only  purpose  that  can 
justify  such  an  inquiry  is  that  of  social  and  civic 
betterment.  A  survey  must  be  prompted  by  a  sincere 
4  desire  for  constructive  work  in  community  life,  and 
a  conviction  that  the  information  essential  to  such 
constructive  work  is  not  now  available.  It  will  be 
interested  in  ascertaining  the  resources,  assets,  and 
positive  forces  in  the  community  as  well  as  the 
defects,  abnormalities,  and  negative  forces.  It  will 
be  an  inventory  of  assets  and  liabilities,  eventuating 
in  a  program  for  bettering  the  life  of  the  community. 

How  to  Make  a  Survey.  —  Before  any  social  survey 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  45 

is  undertaken,  three  questions  must  be  satisfactorily 
answered  by  those  who  desire  to  make  it  : 

1.  Has  the  community  to  be  surveyed  any  known 
problems  or  conditions   to  which    especial   attention 
should  be  given  ? 

2.  Can  the  survey  be  made  a  means  of  improving 
the  community  ? 

3.  Does  a  representative  group  of  the  people  of  the 
community  desire  that  such  a  survey  be  made  ? 

The  writer  has  already  suggested  that  a  more  or  less 
informal  preliminary  survey  of  the  community  must 
be  made  before  a  thorough  formal  survey  can  either 
receive  popular  support  or  be  wisely  planned.  A 
very  useful  preliminary  survey  can  often  be  made  by 
sounding  the  opinions  of  physicians,  ministers,  teachers, 
lawyers,  merchants,  bankers,  wage  earners,  and  other 
citizens.  Sometimes  it  can  be  done  by  assembling  a 
committee  of  citizens  representing  the  different  ele- 
ments in  the  community  to  discuss  the  life  of  the 
community,  or  certain  aspects  of  it.  A  surprising 
amount  of  concrete  information  is  often  obtained  by 
such  a  meeting.  In  this  way,  one  learns  what  the 
people  are  thinking  about,  and  what  they  think  they  need 
and  desire  for  the  improvement  of  their  community  life. 
Some  of  the  most  important  facts  concerning  a  com- 
munity may  be  obtained  in  this  informal  way. 

It  is  often  possible  to  get  a  community  interested  in 
self-examination  by  calling  attention  to  some  particu- 
lar condition  in  the  community  to  which  the  attention 
of  some  of  the  most  intelligent  citizens  has  been  di- 
rected, such  as  the  conditions  in  the  schools  or  a  bad 
housing  condition. 


46  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

j  Another  important  preliminary  step  is  the  selection 
of  the  group  of  persons  in  the  community  who  are  to 
carry  out  the  survey.  Not  every  prominent  citizen 
is  adapted  to  this  particular  task.  It  requires  alert, 
honest-minded,  and  public-spirited  citizens.  The  pro- 
gram must  be  of  the  people,  and  yet  must  be  directed 
by  real  leadership. 

Technique  of  the  Survey.  —  An  investigation  that  is 
thoroughly  and  wisely  planned  is  well  on  the  road 
toward  completion.     There  are  at  least  four  important 
matters  which  should  be  carefully  worked  out  in  the 
plan  ;   the  information  to  ^be  sought^ the  sources  from  \ 
which  it  will  be  sought,  43ie  methods  to  be  -used   in  / 
obtaining  it,  and  the  selection  of  the  persons  who  are 
to  gather  it. 

It  is  a  serious  mistake  to  try  to  gather  more  kinds 
of  information  than  are  essential  for  the  purpose  which 
the  survey  is  seeking  to  accomplish.  Many  a  social 
survey  has  been  impaired  by  the  effort  to  do  too  much. 
The  group  in  charge  of  the  investigation  should  care- 
fully analyze  the  value  of  each  proposed  question  sug- 
gested as  a  part  of  the  investigation,  and  select  the 
ones  which  are  (a)  of  real  importance,  and  (b)  capable 
of  being  satisfactorily  answered.  To  be  more  explicit, 
these  questions  should  be  (i)  simple  enough  to  be 
readily  understood,  (2)  as  often  as  possible  so  stated 
that  they  can  be  answered  "Yes"  or  "No,"  (3)  so 
stated  that  they  will  not  arouse  resentment,  (4)  such 
as  will  not  be  answered  with  bias  or  prejudice,  (5)  not 
unnecessarily  inquisitorial,  (6)  such  that  they  will  be 
corroboratory,  (7)  such  as  will  unmistakably  cover 
the  point  of  information  desired.  The  smaller  the 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  47 

number  of  topics  selected  for  investigation,  the  larger 
the  probability  of  success. 

Equal  care  must  be  exercised  that  the  plan  may 
cover  all  of  the  matters  which  are  essential  or  im- 
portant. Frequent  surveys  cannot  be  made  of  any 
given  community.  An  investigation  cannot  soon  be 
repeated.  It  should  be  sufficiently  inclusive  to  form 
the  basis  of  community  policies  for  some  years. 

The  nature  of  the  topics  selected  for  investigation 
is  in  part  conditioned  upon  the  methods  of  collecting 
information  which  can  be,  or  are  to  be  used  in  the 
survey.  A  set  of  questions  which  would  be  usable  in 
a  house  to  house  canvass  of  a  district  might  not  be 
practicable  at  all  if  the  data  were  to  be  collected  by,  or 
obtained  from,  the  children  in  the  schools,  or  by 
questionnaires  mailed  to  business  men  or  to  the  people's 
homes.  If  a  group  of  experienced  investigators  are 
to  collect  the  data,  more  questions  can  be  covered  than 
if  inexperienced  or  volunteer  workers  are  used.  If 
a  study  is  to  be  made  of  local  records  or  other  docu- 
mentary evidence,  the  information  in  them  can  be  more 
exhaustively  extracted  than  if  questions  must  be  asked 
of  the  residents  of  the  community. 

It  is  usually  advisable  to  prepare  a  blank,  or  ques- 
tionnaire, in  which  the  various  questions  for  investiga- 
tion will  be  clearly  and  definitely  stated ;  but  much 
better  results  will  be  obtained  in  the  collection  of  the 
data  asked  for,  if  each  worker  memorizes  the  questions 
and  does  not  fill  out  the  blank  in  the  presence  of  the 
person  from  whom  information  is  obtained.  Unless 
a  questionnaire  is  very  elaborate,  it  is  not  at  all  difficult 
for  field  workers  to  become  so  familiar  with  their 


48  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

questionnaires  that  they  can  extract  from  the  persons 
interviewed  all  of  the  information  necessary  to  fill 
out  the  blank,  and  then  enter  the  data  in  the  blank 
after  the  termination  of  the  interview. 

The  area  to  be  covered  is  another  important  point 
to  be  decided.  It  must  be  large  enough  to  make 
the  information  valuable.  It  must  include  enough 
"  cases  "  to  permit  dependable  generalizations.  One 
cannot  safely  draw  conclusions  from  too  few  cases. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  too  large  to  per- 
mit thorough  work.  Sometimes  investigators  use  the 
"  sample  plot  "  method,  choosing  one  or  more  typical 
neighborhoods,  communities,  townships,  or  counties 
for  study,  instead  of  trying  to  cover  an  area  beyond 
their  resources.  This  can  be  done  with  some  accuracy 
by  a  committee  familiar  enough  with  the  district  to 
know  what  constitutes  a  typical  community,  or  after 
a  preliminary  survey  such  as  has  already  been  dis- 
cussed. Usually  a  particular  city,  ward,  rural  school 
district,  or  other  definite  political  division  is  the  area 
to  be  investigated,  and  the  unit  of  investigation  is, 
therefore,  predetermined. 

Analysis  of  the  Data  Obtained.  -  -  The  most  im- 
portant phase  of  an  investigation  is  the  interpretation 
of  the  data  collected.  Inadequate  or  erroneous  inter- 
pretation may  waste  or  misapply  some  of  the  most 
important  facts  gathered.  A  person  or  a  small  com- 
mittee of  open-minded  persons  of  education  and 
ability  should  interpret  the  data  obtained.  In  some 
cases  the  area  studied  is  a  kind  of  social  crazy  quilt. 
The  interviewer  of  the  survey  must  see  these  differ- 
ently-colored patches  —  the  different  aspects  of  the  life 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  49 

of  the  people  —  in  their  mutual  relationships.  In  the 
survey  they  have  asked  and  tried  to  answer  such 
questions  as,  for  example :  Why  do  all  the  Italians  in 
the  community  investigated  live  in  a  little  colony  of 
shacks  ?  Why  are  most  of  them  men  ?  Why  do  they 
all  do  unskilled  work  ?  Why  do  they  have  a  parochial 
school  ?  Why  do  they  take  their  children  out  of  school 
at  the  earliest  age  permitted  by  law  ?  Is  there  hidden 
crime  in  this  colony  ?  Why  have  they  such  slight  social 
relations  with  their  American  born  and  bred  neigh- 
bors? In  what  respects  have  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity caused  these  conditions  by  a  failure  to  develop 
proper  relations  with  these  Italian  people?  Or,  why 
do  so  many  farmers  leave  their  machinery  out-of-doors 
in  winter?  Why  is  there  so  much  typhoid  fever  in 
the  community?  Why  are  there  so  many  churches 
and  why  is  each  so  poorly  attended  ? 

The  analysis  of  the  survey,  finally,  should  be  pub- 
lished in  a  report  which  sets  forth  and  interprets  the 
facts  obtained  and  suggests  remedies  for  outstanding 
defects  in  the  community  life.  This  report  should  be 
as  concise  as  possible,  in  simple  English,  and  in  a 
pleasing  literary  style.  Statistical  tables  and  charts 
should  be  printed  in  appendices  to  the  report,  which 
should  itself  be  devoted  to  a  simple,  clear  description 
for  the  community  of  its  assets  and  its  defects,  and  of 
proposed  community  policies. 

Surveys  of  Rural  Communities.  —  We  come  now  to 
the  immediate  purpose  of  this  discussion,  the  desir- 
ability and  the  technique  of  such  surveys  in  rural  com- 
munities. Fortunately,  the  very  excellent,  construc- 
tive studies  of  rural  communities  which  have  already 


50  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

been  made,  furnish  suggestive  guidance  for  communi- 
ties undertaking  a  self-examination.1  The  rural  com- 
munity is  of  course  not  nearly  so  complex  as  the  urban 

A    SOCIAL    SURVEY 
CENTURIA    COMMUNITY,    POLK    CO.,    WIS. 


An  excellent  way  of  showing  the   educational   status  of   each   child   ill 
the  community.     Note  the  lack  of  high  school  education  here. 

community.  The  three  principal  social  groupings  in 
rural  life  are  the  home,  the  neighborhood,  and  the  com- 
munity. A  neighborhood  is  a  collection  of  homes  in 
a  single  locality  having  one  or  more  common  interests 

1  To  Professor  G.  F.  Warren  of  the  Dept.  of  Farm  Management, 
New  York  State  College  of  Agriculture  at  Cornell  University,  must  be 
given  the  credit  for  making  the  first  farm  survey.  In  the  summer  of 
1903  Professor  Warren  personally  made  an  orchard  survey  of  574  farms 
in  Wayne  County,  New  York. 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  51 

and  surrounded  by  practically  the  same  social  en- 
vironment. A  district  school,  a  church,  a  grange 
hall,  a  mill,  or  a  cooperative  creamery  often  serves  as 
the  rallying  point  for  such  an  area.  It  may  be  a  num- 

A    SOCIAL    SURVEY 
CENTURIA    COMMUNITY,    POLK    CO.,    WIS. 


This   map    shows   the    number    of    newspapers    taken    in    each    home 
of    the    community. 

ber  of  homes  somewhat  near  together  and  all  belonging 
to  the  same  nationality,  such  as  a  Swedish  settlement. 
Sometimes  the  genial  hospitality  or  the  personal  leader- 
ship of  one  prominent  home  or  individual  kindles  the 
spirit  of  neighborliness  in  homes  near  by  and  gives 
a  name  to  the  neighborhood,  such  as  "  the  Jones 
neighborhood." 


52 


THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 


The  community  includes  all  the  homes  which  try 
to  satisfy  at  a  common  center  their  fundamental  com- 
mon needs,  such  as  those  for  food,  clothing,  imple- 
ments, money,  high  school  education,  amusement,  and 

_CENTUR|A    COMMUNITY,    POLK    CO.,    WIS. 


This  rural  community  map  reveals  the  fact  that  in  most  of  these  homes 
one  or  both  of  the  parents  are  foreign  born. 

fraternal  organization.  The  word  "  community"  im- 
plies common  interests  and  privileges,  a  sharing  of 
many  things  in  common.  The  center  of  the  community 
is  usually,  though  not  always  or  necessarily,  a  village, 
or  trade-center.  Such  a  trade-center  serves  a  com- 
munity area,  or  trade-basin,  whose  area  is  very  often 
determined  by  such  natural  barriers  as  hills,  moun- 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION 


53 


tains,  streams,  and  swamps.  Roads,  trolley  lines, 
railways,  and  canals,  also,  play  a  part  in  determining 
the  area  of  a  community.  Sometimes  the  whole  com- 
munity is  within  a  township  or  county ;  sometimes  it 

A    SOCIAL    SURVEY 
CENTURIA    COMMUNITY,    POLK    CO.,    WfS. 


GAN.ZED    AGENClE 


1 


*    I    > 
&»*   1 


V 


«> 


f  M»«J 
1 


A  rural  community  map  showing  the  homes  influenced  by  commercial, 
religious,  and  educational  organizations. 

laps  over  into  other  political  units.  Density  of  popu- 
lation is  also  a  determining  factor  in  community  area. 
In  the  thinly  settled  West,  the  area  of  the  trade-basin 
is  much  greater  than  in  the  more  thickly  populated 
East,  where  there  are  villages  within  one  to  four  miles 
of  the  majority  of  farm  homes. 

The  village  sustains  a  vital  relationship  to  the  farm- 


54  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

ing  community  which  surrounds  it.  The  people  living 
in  the  village  are  engaged  in  business  mainly  to  supply 
the  needs  of  the  outlying  farm  homes  of  the  district. 
The  village  is  the  pantry,  safe,  shop,  medicine  chest, 
playhouse,  and  altar  of  the  community  at  large.  The 
village  homes,  in  thus  serving  the  needs  of  the  scattered 
homes  of  the  farm  people,  become  a  part  of  the  rural 
community.  On  the  other  hand,  the  rural  homes 
make  the  business  interests  of  the  village  homes  pos- 
sible. Neither  the  village  home  nor  the  farm  home 
could  exist  by  itself  ;  the  one  depends  upon  the  other  ; 
and  the  outlying  farm  homes  and  their  village  center 
make  up  together  the  community  group  which  forms 
the  natural  basis  for  any  rural  survey. 

The  Teacher  May  Be  a  Surveyor  of  Her  District.  - 
Often  the  most  convenient  rural  unit  for  investigation 
is  the  school  district ;  and  the  teacher  is  in  many 
cases  the  most  logical  and  suitable  person  to  carry 
through  an  investigation.  She  may  have  been  in  the 
community  long  enough  to  know  the  people  intimately, 
and  the  course  of  her  regular  work  gives  her  many 
opportunities  for  obtaining  information  that  she  might 
not  be  able  to  write  into  a  report,  but  which  would 
help  her  to  interpret  wisely  the  facts  obtained  in  the 
survey.  The  rural  teacher  may  have  a  closer  personal 
knowledge  of  the  community  than  any  worker  could 
possibly  have  in  any  city  district. 

A  rural  survey  is  the  easiest  kind  to  make,  as  there 
are  few  people,  the  community  life  is  not  complex,  and 
there  is  usually  but  one  industry.  Especially  valuable 
township,  county,  and  state  surveys  can  readily  be 
compiled  from  these  district  studies. 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  55 

Every  teacher  should  become  skilled  in  this  work, 
as  it  is  only  by  knowing  and  understanding  the  prob- 
lems of  her  community  that  she  can  hope  to  render 
maximum  service  to  the  people.  The  information 
obtained  by  a  survey,  formal  or  informal,  aids  her  in 
her  school  work ;  it  helps  her  to  know  in  what  ways 
her  school  can  and  should  serve  the  community ;  and 
it  reveals  in  what  ways  and  to  what  extent  the  people 
will  support  her  work.  It  gives  her  the  knowledge 
necessary  for  intelligent  leadership  in  the  community. 

A  teacher  who  desires  to  make  a  survey  of  her  school 
district  can  ordinarily  secure  assistance  and  support 
from  many  sources.  A  great  deal  of  information  can 
be  obtained  from  the  pupils.  Physicians,  attorneys, 
ministers,  and  county  agricultural  agents  will  be  glad 
to  furnish  information  along  their  respective  lines, 
provided  they  are  convinced  that  it  will  not  be  used 
in  any  way  that  will  endanger  their  work  and  impair 
their  usefulness  in  the  community.  Progressive  farm- 
ers and  business  men  will  be  glad  to  aid  in  what  they  see 
is  a  step  toward  a  better  community  for  their  children. 

The  teacher  who  desires  a  better  knowledge  of  her 
district,  but  does  not  believe  the  time  is  ripe  for  a  formal 
survey,  can  often  acquire  a  rather  detailed  knowledge 
of  the  community  by  becoming  personally  acquainted 
with  all  or  at  least  most  of  the  families  of  her  district. 
By  tactful  questioning  and  by  carefully  noting  what 
she  sees  in  and  about  the  homes  as  she  visits  them, 
she  will,  if  she  wishes,  be  able  to  make  a  survey  without 
raising  the  question  among  the  people  at  all.  While 
it  will  not  be  as  satisfactory  as  a  real  survey,  it  will 
be  far  better  than  ignorance  of  the  district. 


56  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

Maps  of  the  District.  —  Valuable  results  can  often 
be  obtained  by  the  preparation  of  maps  of  the  district. 
A  teacher  can  give  her  pupils  a  deeper  interest  in,  and 
a  better  knowledge  of,  their  community  by  guiding 
them  in  such  map  preparation.  The  maps,  filled  in 
with  the  details  of  the  community,  constitute  in  them- 
selves a  considerable  survey.  There  is  no  better 
way  of  stimulating  interest  in  local  geography,  history, 
and  social  and  industrial  conditions  than  such  sur- 
veying and  mapping  of  a  community  by  its  children. 
When  the  survey  is  planned  so  that  the  school  children 
can  share  in  the  investigation  of  rural  conditions,  farm 
life  takes  on  a  new  meaning  and  commands  a  new 
respect,  while  the  findings  of  the  survey  make  more 
intelligible  nearly  every  study  in  their  curriculum.1 
History,  civics,  agriculture,  domestic  science,  hygiene, 
geography,  nature  study,  and  the  study  of  English 
are  all  vitalized  by  the  information  which  students  may 
gather  for  a  district  survey.  Such  an  investigation  has 
an  academic  as  well  as  a  civic  justification.  It  is  a 
means  of  socializing  education.  The  map  that  is 
given  on  the  next  page,  which  was  prepared  in  a 
school  in  Sauk  County,  Wisconsin,  shows  something 
of  what  can  be  done  in  this  way. 

A  Warning  to  Those  Who  Make  Rural  Surveys.  — 
Whoever  undertakes  to  make  a  survey  of  a  rural  dis- 
trict assumes  a  task  requiring  much  tact  and  common 

1  In  March  of  1919,  the  boys  of  the  high  school  in  Boyceville,  Wis- 
consin, made  a  survey  of  the  live  stock  in  the  district.  This  survey 
was  made  at  the  request  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture, which  at  that  time  was  making  a  nation-wide  investigation  of 
the  amount  of  live  stock  in  this  country.  Thousands  of  schools  aided 
in  this  survey. 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION 


57 


sense.  The  investigator  should  constantly  bear  in 
mind  that  rural  people  are  very  conservative  and  are 
inclined  to  be  suspicious  of  any  one  who  inquires  into 


A  rural  school  district  map  drawn  by  Miss  Mabel  A.  Sullivan,  a  teacher 
in  Sauk  County,  Wisconsin.  The  data  for  this  map  were  collected  by 
the  seventh  and  eighth  grade  pupils  of  Miss  Sullivan's  school. 
County  Supt.  George  W.  Davies  has  been  a  pioneer  in  this  work. 

their  personal  affairs.  He  should  be  able  and  willing 
to  give  them  acceptable  assurance  that  the  inquiry 
is  being  made  in  the  right  spirit  and  for  proper  reasons. 
Above  all  else,  antagonism 'and  neighborhood  enmities 
must  not  be  aroused.  Gossip  must  not  be  carried  from 
house  to  house  in  the  course  of  the  collection  of  data. 
The  information  gathered  from  each  individual  must 
be  strictly  confidential.  It  should  be  told  to  no  one, 
either  during  or  after  the  survey.  In  the  final  publica- 
tion of  a  report,  personal  facts  must  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  social.  Unless  the  rural  worker  fully 


58  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

appreciates  the  responsibility  assumed  in  investigating 
other  people's  affairs,  he  or  she  has  no  right,  morally 
or  otherwise,  to  make  a  survey,  formal  or  informal. 
There  are  many  partial  surveys,  such  as  the  number 
of  silos  in  a  district,  or  the  number  of  young  people 
not  in  high  school,  that  may  be  fully  reported  to 
any  one  concerned  or  interested  without  arousing  ill- 
feeling  on  the  part  of  any  resident,  and  without  damag- 
ing any  one's  standing  in  the  community,  but  such 
matters  as  mortgages  or  money  income  are  strictly 
personal,  and  concern  only  those  who  have  a  right 
to  know  about  them.  The  writer  believes  the  survey 
to  be  invaluable  in  the  hands  of  the  discreet  and  re- 
liable, but  it  may  be  an  instrument  of  destruction  to 
all  concerned  in  the  hands  of  the  unwise  and  irrespon- 
sible investigator. 

The  following  list  of  surveys  will  furnish  rich  material  for  special 
reading,  topics,  and  discussions.  The  student  of  rural  affairs 
should  give  especial  attention  to  the  rural  surveys.  The  Social 
Survey,  by  Carol  Aronovici  (The  Harper  Press,  Philadelphia,  1916), 
contains  a  more  detailed  list  of  surveys. 

CITY  SURVEYS 

HARRISON,  SHELBY  M.  The  Springfield  Survey.  Russell  Sage 
Foundation,  New  York  City,  1918. 

HARRISON,  SHELBY  M.  Topeka  Improvement  Survey.  Russell 
Sage  Foundation,  New  York  City,  1914. 

KELLOGG,  PAUL  U.  The  Pittsburgh  Survey.  Russell  Sage  Founda- 
tion, New  York  City,  1909. 

POTTER,  ZENAS  L.  Newburgh  Survey.  Russell  Sage  Foundation, 
New  York  City,  1913. 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  59 

EDUCATIONAL  SURVEYS 

AVER,  F.  C.  (and  others).  Constructive  Survey  of  the  Public  School 
System  of  Ashland,  Oregon.  University  of  Oregon,  Eugene, 
Ore.,  1902. 

DUGGAN,  M.  L.  Educational  Survey  of  Tift  County.  State  Edu- 
cational Department,  Atlanta,  Ga.,  1918.  (Also  studies  of 
other  Georgia  counties  made  by  same  Department.) 

FOGHT,  HAROLD  W.  Rural  School  System  of  Minnesota.  Bulletin 
No.  20,  1915,  United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington. 

MORSE,  H.  N.,  and  EASTMAN,  E.  R.  An  Educational  Survey  of  a 
Suburban  and  Rural  County.  Bulletin  No.  32,  1913,  United 
States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington. 

PARRISH,  C.  L.  Survey  of  the  Atlanta  Public  Schools.  Board  of 
Education,  Atlanta,  Ga.,  1914. 

PENNSYLVANIA  STATE  EDUCATIONAL  COMMISSION.  Report  on 
Rural  Schools.  Harrisburg,  1914. 

SARGENT,  C.  G.  Rural  and  Village  Schools  of  Colorado.  Colorado 
Agricultural  College,  Ft.  Collins,  1914. 

.  .  .  .  Report  of  Rural  School  Commission  of  North  Dakota. 
Grand  Forks,  1912. 

,  .  .  .  Report  of  the  Special  Educational  Commission,  State  of 
Connecticut.  Hartford,  1902. 

RURAL  SURVEYS 

BRANSON,  E.  C.     Economic  and  Social  Surveys  of  Fulton  and  Bibb 

Counties.     State  Normal  School,  Athens,  Ga.,  1912. 
GALPIN,  CHARLES  JOSIAH;    DAVIES,  G.  W. ;    and  STONE,  GRACE 

WYMAN.     Social  Surveys  of  Rural  School  Districts.     Circular 

122,  Extension  Service  of  the  College  of  Agriculture,  University 

of  Wisconsin. 
THOMPSON,  CARL  W.,  and  WARBER,  G.  P.     Social  and  Economic 

Survey  of  a  Rural  Township  in  Southern  Minnesota.     Bulletin, 

University  of  Minnesota,  1913. 
WARBER,  G.  P.     Social  and  Economic  Survey  of  a  Community  in 

Northeastern  Minnesota.     Bulletin,  University  of  Minnesota, 


60  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

WELD,  Louis  D.  H.  Social  and  Economic  Survey  of  a  Community  in 
the  Red  River  Valley.  Bulletin,  University  of  Minnesota,  1915. 

WILSON,  W.  H.,  and  ASHENHURST,  J.  O.  Rural  Survey  in  Kansas. 
Department  of  Church  and  Country  Life,  Presbyterian  Church, 
156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City,  1913.  (This  organization 
has  also  made  many  other  rural  surveys.) 


QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 

(This  list  of  questions,  together  with  the  Plan  for  Study  of  Popu- 
lation Characteristics,  contains  material  for  three  or  four  reading 
circle,  club,  or  class  meetings.) 

1.  Define  the  term  "social  survey."     Name  and  define  the 
different  kinds  of  surveys. 

2.  What  is  the  only  object,  from  an  ethical  as  well  as  a  social 
point  of  view,  in  making  a  survey  ? 

3.  Discuss  the  development  of  the  use  of  the  survey  in  Europe. 

4.  Discuss  the  development  of  the  use  of  the  survey  in  the 
United  States. 

5.  Discuss  the  value  of  the  educational  survey.     What  results 
have  been  accomplished  by  its  use?     What  part  do  you  think  the 
school  survey  will  play  in  the  education  of  the  future  ? 

6.  Discuss  fully  the  process  of  making  a  survey. 

7 .  Define  the  terms  ' '  estate, ' '  ' '  neighborhood, "  "  community, ' ' 
''district,"  "locality." 

8.  Name  some  of  the  local  conditions  that  determine  the  extent 
of  a  community. 

9.  Name  some  of  the  ways  in  which  the  rural  district  and  the 
trade-center  are  related.     Why  is  the  term  "trade-center"  used? 

10.  What  is  the  chief  value  of  community  maps  ? 

1 1 .  Work  out  a  series  of  maps  of  your  own  community,  locating 
native  and  foreign-born  farmers,  owner  and  tenant  farmers,  farmers 
who  are  church  members  and  those  who  are  not,  farmers  who  have 
children  attending  rural  school,  high  school,  or  college.     (It  is  also 
possible  to  work  out  maps  showing  other  educational  conditions.) 

12.  What  have  you  learned  from  the  making  of  these  maps? 
Are  such  maps  of  educational  value  to  the  children  of  your  district  ? 
To  the  parents  of  your  district? 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  61 

13.  Do  you  think  the  use  of  the  survey  can  be  overdone  ? 

14.  State  three  warnings  relative  to  the  making  of  surveys 
which  should  be  given  to  every  rural  worker  who  is  contemplating 
the  making  of  a  survey. 

15.  What  do  you  consider  the  chief  value  of  a  survey?    State 
some  of  the  results  of  surveys. 

Plan  for  Study  of  Population  Characteristics  of  a  Rural  Community 

Prepare  map,  but  enter  no  physiographic  data  on  it  except 
to  show  streams.  Study  nationality  of  families  of  district  and 
indicate  on  map,  giving  particular  attention  to  location  and  size  of 
" settlements"  of  particular  nationalities. 

In  the  course  of  preparation  of  this  map,  collect  data  showing 
dates  when  different  settlers,  and  groups  of  settlers,  came  to  the 
district,  the  places  from  which  they  came,  reasons  why  they  came, 
and  how  they  happened  to  come  to  this  particular  neighborhood. 
Often  matters  of  much  social  and  historical  interest  relative  to  the 
population  of  a  community  are  not  recognized  and  appreciated 
by  the  people  until  some  definite  study  of  this  kind  brings  them  to 
light.  Romance,  heroism,  and  idealism  have  been  written  into  the 
life  of  many  a  rural  community  in  terms  of  practical  living  without 
the  people's  realizing  the  drama  of  their  own  individual  and  com- 
munity lives.  This  study  may  do  much  to  inspire  and  integrate 
the  community. 

Some  of  the  topics  to  be  given  special  attention  are : 

1.  Number  of  homes  in  the  district,  average  number  of  people 
in  each,  and  average  number  of  rooms  in  each  house. 

2.  When  and  by  whom  was  each  farm  settled?     Are  any  of 
these  pioneers  still  living  in  the  community?     How  many  of  their 
descendants  ?    Are  any  of  the  houses  or  other  buildings  erected  by 
pioneers  yet  standing  ? 

3.  Of  what  race  and  nationality  were  these  pioneers  ?    What 
races  and  nationalities  are  represented  in  this  district  at  the  present 
time?    Are  any  of  the  residents  recent  immigrants?     Of  what 
nations  and  peoples  ?    How  many  foreign-born  residents  are  there  in 
the  community  ?     Has  immigration  at  any  time  changed  the  charac- 
ter and  general  type  of  the  community  ?     How  many  of  the  present 
population  are  of  native-born  stock  ?      Of  foreign-born  stock  ? 


62  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

4.  How      many      widows?     Widowers?     Divorced      people? 
Single  people  of  marriageable  age?     Children  under  12  years  of 
age?     Children  from  12  to  17  years  of  age?     Young  people  from 
1 8  to    25    years    of    age?     This    will  show    whether    the  district 
is  losing  its  youth  or  holding  them,  and  whether  the  age  distribution 
is  normal  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  country. 

5.  Has  the  population  of  the  district  appreciably  increased  or 
decreased  at  any  particular  time?     If  so,  why  has  it  done  so? 
How  many  people  have  gone  from  the  district  to  towns  or  cities 
within  the  past  20  years?     Ten   years?     Five   years?      Do  the 
young  people  or  the  old  people  leave  these  farm  homes  for  the  town 
and  city  ?     Why  do  they  leave  ?     What  effect  does  this  have  upon 
rural  leadership  ? 

6.  Are  there  any  insane,   feeble-minded,   blind,   or  crippled 
persons?     Chronic     invalids?     Paupers?     Criminals?     How     are 
they  being  cared  for  ?    Is  this  the  best  method  that  is  practicable 
in  this  district  ? 

7.  Are    there  social  classes  due  to  race,  nationality,  religion, 
wealth,  or  culture,  or  do  people  mingle  freely  as  one  social  body? 
Is  the  neighborhood  broken  up  into  factions  because  of   feuds, 
quarrels,  or  disagreements  ? 

8.  Have    the    immigrants   transplanted  to   this    district   Old 
World  institutions  ?    Do  these  interfere  with  wholesome  American 
citizenship  ? 

9.  Are    the    people    conservative    or    progressive?     Is    their 
standard  of  living  advancing? 

10.  Are  the  homes  isolated  or  are  they  built  in  groups  ? 

11.  Are  there  occasions  when  all  the  people  assemble,  such  as 
harvest  homes,  grange  meetings,  pioneers'  day? 

12.  Are    there    farmers'    clubs?     Women's    clubs?     Fraternal 
organizations  ?     Cultural  and  social  clubs  to  which  both  men  and 
women  belong  ? 

13.  Is  there  a  social  center  ?     Which  is  the  better  rallying  point 
for  the  social  center,  the  church  or  the  school?     In  what  ways 
does  a  social  center  serve  a  rural  people? 

14.  How  many  community  events  are  there  each  year?     Are 
they  largely  attended  ?     When  are  they  held  ?     Why  are  they  held 
at  this  time  ? 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  63 

15.  Do  any  of  the  farm  people  attend  club  meetings  or  social 
events  in  the  village?  Does  the  village  have  a  wholesome  or  an 
unwholesome  effect  upon  the  rural  people?  What  provision  for 
recreation  and  social  life  is  made  for  the  young  people  ? 

Suggestions  for  Study  of  Industrial  Conditions 

1 .  How  far  is  this  district  from  the  nearest  large  city  ?     The 
nearest  town?     Are  there  evidences  that  the  city  affects  the  life 
and  interests  of  this  rural  district  ?     With  which  is  the  rural  district 
chiefly  concerned,  the  production,  the  distribution,  or  the  exchange 
of  goods  ?     The  city  ? 

2.  Are  there  mines  in  this  community?     Oil  or  gas  wells? 
What  effect  do  these  have  upon  the  farming  of  this  district  ? 

3.  Is  farming  the  only  industry  of  this  district?     Are  there 
cheese  factories,  creameries,  milk  condensaries,  or  canneries?     Are 
these  factories  owned  by  people  living  outside  the  district  ?     What 
advantages  would  a  cooperative  business  owned   by  residents  of 
the  community  have  over  a  business  owned  by  non-resident  capital- 
ists?    What  opportunities  are  there  for  these  farmers  to  invest 
their  savings  in  enterprises  that  build  up  the  community  ? 

4.  Is  general,  or  diversified,  farming  the  rule  ?     Is  there  any 
specialized  farming?     Single  crop  farming? 

5.  What  labor-saving  machinery  is  used  on  the  farms  ?     In  the 
homes  ?     How  many  of  the  farmers  hire  help  for  farm  work  ?     For 
the  work  in  the  home  ?     To  what  extent  does  this  year-round,  crop- 
season,  or  short-season  help?     How  does  seasonal  work  on  the 
farm  affect  the  schools  ?     Do  the  farmers'  wives  work  in  the  fields  ? 
What  effect  does  this  have  upon  the  home  life  ?     How  many  hours 
a  day  do  the  farmers  work  ?    Women  ?     Children  ?     Hired  hands  ? 

6.  Do  the  farmers  in  this  district  cooperate  in  any  way  in 
buying  or  selling  ?     In  what  ways  ?     How  successfully  ? 

7 .  Are  there  rural  credit  facilities  available  for  the  farmers  of  this 
state  ?     What  are  they  ?     Do  they  meet  the  needs  of  the  farmers  ? 

8.  Are  there  silos  in  the  district?     If  so,  on  what  proportion 
of  the  farms  ? 

9.  How  many  automobiles?    What  effect  do  they  have  upon 
the  social  life  of  the  community?     Upon  farming  as  a  business? 

10.   How  many  tenants  are  there  in  this  district?    Why  are 


64  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

these  people  tenants  ?  Are  they  related  to  the  owners  of  the  farms 
they  are  working?  Do  they  rent  on  a  share,  cash,  or  share-cash 
basis  ?  What  is  the  average  size  of  the  tenant  farms  ? 

1 1 .  How  many  of  the  farms  are  mortgaged  ?     Who  holds  these 
mortgages  —  individuals,  local  banks,  or  corporations  ? 

12.  Do  the  farmers  in  this  district  systematically  fight  weeds, 
insects,  animal  pests,  and  animal  diseases? 

13.  Do  fruit,  vegetable,  grain,  and  stock  buyers  buy  through 
this  district?     Do  the  farmers  have  any  cooperative  selling  as- 
sociations ? 

14.  About  how  many  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  produce  does 
each  of  the  farmers  in  this  district  sell  each  year  ?     Which  make 
th2  largest  incomes  and  have  the  best  homes  —  those  with  a  grade 
school  education,  those  who  have  been  through  a  high  school,  or 
those  who  have  attended  agricultural  college?     Do  any  of  the 
farmers  have  a  system  of  bookkeeping  of  their  farm  operations  ? 

15.  Is  there  a  government  experiment  station  in  this  community  ? 
Has  the  county  an  agricultural  agent?     What  are  the  duties  of 
a  county  agricultural  agent  ? 

1 6.  In  what  condition  are  the  homes?     Are  the  homesteads 
well  planned  and  well  laid  out?     What  styles  of  architecture  are 
represented  in  this  district? 

17.  Do  the  farms  change  ownership  often?    Are  they  being 
built  up  or  are  they  being  allowed  to  run  down?     Are  there  any 
differences  between  farms  operated  by  owners  and  farms  operated 
by  tenants  in  this  respect? 

1 8.  Do  the  farmers  in  this  district  work  under  favorable  or  un- 
favorable conditions  ?  Give  reasons  for  the  conditions  in  this  case. 

19.  If  you  were  obliged  to  choose  between  the  owning  of  a  farm 
of  100  acres  in  your  district  or  a  $2500  per  year  position  in  a  manu- 
facturing plant  in  a  city,  which  would  you  choose?     Why? 

REFERENCES 

ARONOVICI,  CAROL.  The  Social  Survey,  pp.  1-33;  131-174; 
194-252.  The  Harper  Press,  Philadelphia,  1916. 

FLANAGAN,  ROY  K.  Sanitary  Survey  of  the  Schools  of  Orange  County, 
Virginia.  Bulletin  17,  1914,  United  States  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion, Washington,  D.  C. 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  65 

GALPIN,  CHARLES  JOSIAH.  The  Social  Anatomy  of  an  Agricultural 
Community.  Research  Bulletin  34,  The  Experiment  Station 
of  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

GALPIN,  CHARLES  JOSIAH;  DA  VIES,  G.  W. ;  and  STONE,  GRACE 
WYMAN.  Social  Survey  of  Rural  School  Districts.  Circular 
122,  Extension  Service  of  the  College  of  Agriculture,  University 
of  Wisconsin. 

GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.  Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapter  XVIII. 
The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1913. 

HARRISON,  SHELBY  M.  Community  Action  through  Surveys. 
Russell  Sage  Foundation,  New  York  City,  1916. 

HART,  JOSEPH  K.  The  Educational  Resources  of  Village  and  Rural 
Communities.  The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1913. 

MONAHAN,  A.  C.,  and  COOK,  KATHERINE  M.  Educational  Survey  of 
Wyoming.  Bulletin  29,  1916,  pp.  83-95,  United  States  Bureau 
of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

RICHMOND,  MARY  ELLEN.  Social  Diagnosis.  Russell  Sage  Foun- 
dation, New  York  City,  1917.  (A  community  which  purposes 
to  make  a  survey  should  study  this  book  carefully.) 

VOGT,  PAUL  L.  Introduction  to  Rural  Sociology y  Chapter  XXVII. 
D.  Appleton  &  Company,  New  York,  1917. 

WEEKS,  ARLAND  D.  The  Psychology  of  Citizenship,  Chapters  I, 
VII,  VIII.  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Company,  Chicago,  1917. 

SUGGESTIONS  FOR  STUDY  OF  THE  RURAL  HOME 

/  —  General  Information. 

1 .  Date  of  survey. 

2.  County. 

3.  Township. 

4.  School  district. 

5.  Name  of  compiler. 

6.  Source  of  information. 

//  —  Location  of  Home. 

1 .  Main  road,  or  by-road. 

2.  General  geographical  features.     A  seashore,  a  river, 

a  plain,  or  mountains.     View  from  the  house. 


66  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

///  —  Valuation  of  Home. 

1.  Number  of  acres  in  farm. 

2.  Style  and  condition  of  house. 

3.  Kind  and  condition  of  other  buildings  on  the  farm. 

4.  Valuation  of  the  property. 

5.  Assessment  valuation  of  the  property. 

6.  Tax  rate  (total  amount  of  all  taxes). 

7.  Is  property  insured? 

8.  Is   property  mortgaged?     Rate   of  interest   paid   on 

mortgage. 

9.  Name  of  the  mortgagor. 

10.   Is  the  value  of  the  land  increasing  or  decreasing? 
n.   Is  the  total  valuation  of  the  property  increasing  or 
decreasing  ? 

IV  —  Household. 

1.  Head  of  household. 

2.  Years  of  head  in  this  county. 

3.  Years  of  head  in  this  school  district. 

4.  Is  head  married,  unmarried,  or  divorced  ? 

5.  Race  and  nationality  of  head. 

6.  Race  and  nationality  of  helpmate  of  head. 

7.  Number  in  family.     Age  of  each. 

8.  Number  in  household  other  than  family. 

9.  Children  at  home. 

10.  Children  not  at  home.     Where  located? 

1 1 .  Children  dead. 

12.  Children  married. 

13.  Children  defective. 

a.  Physically  defective.     Maimed  or  crippled?     De- 

formed?    Blind?     Deaf?     Deaf     and     dumb? 
Epileptic  ?     Neurasthenic  ? 

b.  Mentally       defective.     Idiots?     Imbeciles?     Mo- 

rons ?     Insane  ? 

c.  Moral     defectives.     Criminals?     Inebriates?     Ju- 

venile delinquents?     Tramps? 

14.  Has  family  permitted  any  near  relative  to  be  a  pauper  ? 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  67 

V  —  Economic  Status  of  Household. 

1 .  Number  of  years  head  has  been  a  farmer. 

2.  Number  of  years  on  this  farm. 

3.  Miles  from  nearest  village. 

4.  Miles  from  nearest  market  for  farm  produce. 

5.  Amount  and  condition  of  machinery  used  on  farm. 

6.  Amount  and  condition  of  labor-saving  machinery  used 

in  the  house. 

7.  Do  children  help  with  farm  work  ? 

8.  Does  wife  help  with  farm  work  ? 

9.  Number  and  sex  of  hired  help. 

10.  Sources  of  cash  income. 

1 1 .  Probable  amount  of  cash  income  per  year. 

12.  Kind  of  farming  —  special  or  general. 

13.  Does  head  of  household  believe  in   cooperative   en- 

terprises ? 

14.  How  does  head  invest  savings? 

15.  Do  children  and  wife  have  their  own  spending  money 

or  allowances?     Do  they  earn  this  money  them- 
selves ? 

1 6.  Are  farm  accounts  kept  ? 

17.  General  appearance  of  farm. 

1 8.  Does  head  of  household  keep  in  touch  with  an  agricul- 

tural college  ? 

19.  Status  of  wife  or  homemaker. 

a.  Number  of  rooms  in  house. 

b.  Running  water  in  house. 

c.  Bathroom. 

d.  Cistern. 

e.  Pump,  inside  or  outside  of  house. 
/.  Washing  machine. 

g.  Cream  separator. 

h.  Is  butter  made  at  home  ? 

i.  Kind  of  stoves.     Heating  system. 

j.  Lighting  system. 

k.  Refrigerator. 

/.  Fireless  cooker. 


68  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

m.  Charcoal  or  electric  iron. 

n.  Condition  of  front  and  back  yards. 

o.  House  painted  ? 

p.  Are  doors,  windows,  and  porch  screened? 

q.  Telephone. 

r.  Hired  help. 

s.  Does  each  child  have  household  duties  ? 

/.  Does  wife  help  milk  and  do  chores  ? 

u.  Does  wife  help  in  field  in  rush  seasons  ? 

v.  Is  dressmaker  hired  ? 

w.  Is  work  of  household  systematized  and  is  house 
kept  in  order  ? 

VI — Educational  Status  of  Household. 

1.  Highest  school  attended  by  father. 

2.  Highest  school  attended  by  mother. 

3.  Highest  school  attended  by  older  children.     Highest 

school  which  children  hope  to  attend. 

4.  Children  in  school  at  present. 

5.  Where  is  the  nearest  high  school? 

6.  Where  do  children  attend  high  school  ? 

7.  Do  parents  take  active  interest  in  the  district  school? 

Ever   visit  the  school?     Attend  school  entertain- 
ments?    Invite  teacher  to  their  home? 

8.  Distance  of  home  from  the  school. 

9.  Number  of  days  in  school  session. 

10.   Number  of  days  attended  by  each  child  of  the  family. 

VII — Religious  Status  of  Household. 

1 .  Church  attended  by  each  member  of  household. 

2.  Attendants  or  members? 

3.  Number  of  meetings  attended  on  Sunday. 

4.  Number  of  meetings  attended  during  week. 

5.  To  what  religious  organizations  do  parents  belong? 

6.  To  what  religious  organizations  do  the  children  belong  ? 

7.  Devotional  exercises  in  home.     Bible  in  home. 

8.  Reasons  for  not  attending  church. 

9.  Church  offices  held  by  members  of  family. 
10.  Contribution  of  family  to  church. 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  69 

VIII  — Social  Status  of  Household. 

1.  Organizations  to  which  father  belongs. 

2.  Organizations  to  which  mother  belongs. 

3.  Organizations  to  which  children  belong. 

4.  Opposed  to  card  playing  ? 

5.  Opposed  to  dancing?     Number  of  dances  attended 

in  a  year.     Town  dances ;   country  dances. 

6.  Attend  theaters  ?     Number  of  plays  seen  in  a  year. 

7.  Attend  musicals  ?     Number  of  musicals  attended  in  a 

year. 

8.  Attend  lectures?     Number  of  lectures  attended  in  a 

year. 

9.  Have  social  gatherings  at  home  ? 

10.  Well  liked  in  neighborhood  ? 

1 1 .  Visits  made  to  neighbors. 

12.  Visits  made  outside  neighborhood. 

13.  Attend  county  fair  ? 

14.  Harvest  home  picnics. 

15.  Neighborhood  gatherings. 

1 6.  Athletic  contests. 

17.  Visits  to  city. 

1 8.  Do  children  play  games  ? 

19.  Do  children  play  in  neighborhood  groups  ? 

20.  Treatment  of  hired  help. 

IX  —  Cultural  Status  of  Household. 

1.  Home    music.     Piano,    violin,    organ,    phonograph, 

singing. 

2.  Reading. 

a.  Books.     Fiction.     Non-fiction. 

b.  Magazines. 

c.  Newspapers.     Dailies.     Weeklies.     Local  or  city. 

3.  Does  family  get  books  from  library  ? 

4.  Reading  done  on  Sundays  or  other  days  ? 
.   Parents  read  to  children? 


70  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

X—  ^Esthetic  Status  of  Household. 

1.  Architecture  of  house. 

2.  Plan  and  condition  of  lawn. 

3.  Condition  of  porches. 

4.  Condition  of  floors  and  walls. 

5.  Furniture. 

6.  Pictures. 

7.  Flowers  and  shrubbery. 

8.  Weeds  and  rubbish. 

9.  General  cleanliness. 

XI  —  Sanitary  Condition  of  Home. 

1.  Sources  of  water  supply. 

2.  Running  water  in  house. 

3.  Bathroom. 

4.  Stable  drainage. 

5.  House  drainage. 

6.  Outside  toilet. 

7.  Disposal  of  garbage. 

8.  Screens  on  doors  and  windows. 

9.  Method  of  heating. 

10.  Method  of  lighting. 

1 1 .  Kind  and  amount  of  sickness-  during  past  year. 

12.  Causes  of  sickness. 

13.  Accidents. 

14.  Cost  of  medical  attendance. 

15.  Nursing. 

1 6.  Neighborhood  aid. 

XII  —  Social  Psychology  of  Community  and  Household. 

1.  Public    opinion    of    community.     Strong    or    weak? 

United  or  divided  ? 

2.  Ideals  of  community.     High  or  low?     Active  or  in- 

active ? 

Leadership.  Any  community  leaders?  Does  com- 
munity respond  to  leadership  ?  Any  leaders  in  this 
family? 


THE  SURVEY  AND  ITS  ADAPTATION  71 

4.  Is  family  influenced  by  community  conditions  ?     Does 

it  hold  aloof  ?     Is  it  ostracized  ? 

5.  Degenerating    influences    in    community?     In    this 

household?     Gambling?     Undesirable  individuals? 

6.  Does  family  belong  to  an  aristocratic  or  controlling 

element   in   the   community?     Does    family   show 
class  prejudice  ? 

7.  Has  family  ever  taken  part  in  unusual  fads,  feuds, 

or  lynchings  ? 

8.  Is  family  superstitious  ? 

9.  Is  family  highly  emotional  ? 


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73 


CHAPTER  IV 
CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL  COMMUNITIES 

The  rural  teacher  and  the  rural  citizen  should  be 
equipped  with  a  good  knowledge  of  the  characteristic 
features  of  American  country  life.  They  should  under- 
stand the  influence  of  different  kinds  of  physiographic 
conditions  upon  the  life,  the  ideas,  and  the  temperament 
of  the  people  who  live  under  these  conditions ;  the 
relation  of  farming  to  the  village  or  town  business 
and  industries ;  the  peculiarities  of  rural  political, 
religious,  educational,  and  social  institutions.  It  is 
the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  suggest  some  of  the 
aspects  of  rural  life  that  should  be  well  understood. 

Physiographic  Influences  upon  Rural  Life.  —  The 
physical  characteristics  of  a  farming  community  exer- 
cise a  determining  influence  upon  it.  Rural  Illinois 
would  have  played  a  far  different  role  in  the  nation's 
life  if,  instead  of  its  broad,  rich  prairies,  it  had  been 
covered  with  hills  like  those  of  Tennessee.  A  rough, 
rolling  district  practically  always  raises  crops  different 
from  those  of  a  level  country.  Each  has  its  own 
peculiar  difficulties  in  developing  neighborhood  life, 
maintaining  strong  schools  and  churches,  and  keeping 
in  contact  with  the  outside  world.  How  often  two 
neighborhoods  separated  only  by  a  stream  or  a  range 
of  hills  have  developed  differences  that  would  never 
have  obtained  had  the  physical  barrier  not  intervened ! 

74 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL   COMMUNITIES        75 

Significant  differences  in  temperature,  rainfall,  drain- 
age, surface  and  subsoils,  and  other  physical  peculi- 
arities of  agricultural  lands,  are  often  present  in  rela- 
tively small  areas.  These,  in  turn,  react  upon  the 
thought,  the  life,  and  the  temperament  of  the  people 
whose  livelihood  depends  upon  these  differences  in 
nature's  endowment  of  the  land.  The  study  of  the 
local  physiography  is  therefore  important  for  any  one 
who  would  understand  the  people  and  the  life  of  any 
locality,  and  some  suggestions  for  such  studies  by 
rural  teachers  and  their  pupils  will  be  found  at  the 
end  of  this  chapter. 

Relation  of  the  Farm  Neighborhood  to  the  City 
or  Village. -- The  relation  of  the  farming  community 
to  the  village  in  its  midst,  or  to  the  city  near  which  it 
is  located,  is  another  important  element  in  rural  life. 
This  relationship  is  always  a  complex  one.  The 
urban  center  is  a  market  in  which  the  farmer  buys 
and  sells  ;  banks  and  borrows.  It  is  there  that  he  finds 
much  of  his  recreation  and  there  his  children  find  their 
high  school  training  and  many  of  their  associates.  The 
urban  newspaper  furnishes  him  with  his  news,  both 
general  and  local.  Its  telephone  exchange  is  his 
means  of  conversation  with  his  neighbors.  Its  railroad 
connects  him  with  the  outside  world.  It  is  the  center 
of  local,  sometimes  of  county  and  state  politics.  It  is 
the  center  of  concentrated,  unified  community  in- 
fluences. 

It  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference,  therefore,  to  any 
farming  community,  with  what  kind  of  town  or  towns 
it  is  in  contact.  In  New  England,  in  certain  parts  of 
the  Middle  States,  and  in  a  few  other  places  of  this 


76  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

country,  there  are  many  counties  in  which  there  are 
several  large  towns,  or  even  large  cities.  Frequently, 
in  these  counties,  the  urban  population  constitutes 
much  the  larger  portion  of  the  total  population  of  the 
county.  In  the  Western  and  in  the  Southern  States, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  agricultural  group  constitutes 
the  majority  of  the  population  in  most  of  the  counties. 

To  illustrate :  In  Rhode  Island,  96.7  per  cent  of  the 
people  live  in  towns  and  cities ;  in  Massachusetts, 
92.8 ;  in  New  York,  78.8 ;  in  Kansas,  29.2  ;  in  Ten- 
nessee, 20.2 ;  in  Mississippi,  11.5;  in  North  Dakota, 
n.o.  To  state  the  matter  conversely,  3.3  per  cent 
of  the  people  in  Rhode  Island  live  in  the  rural  dis- 
tricts ;  7.2  in  Massachusetts  ;  21.2  in  New  York  ;  70.8 
in  Kansas ;  79.8  in  Tennessee ;  88.5  in  Mississippi ; 
89.0  in  North  Dakota.  In  Rhode  Island,  Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut,  New  York,  and  New  Jersey,  from 
75  to  96.7  per  cent  of  the  people  are  town  and  city 
dwellers.  In  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Colorado, 
Maryland,  New  Hampshire,  Maine,  Washington,  and 
California,  from  50  to  75  per  cent  of  the  people  are 
urban,  while  in  North  Dakota,  New  Mexico,  Mis- 
sissippi, Arkansas,  North  Carolina,  and  South  Carolina, 
less  than  15  per  cent  of  the  population  is  urban. 

It  is  possible  to  prove  almost  anything  about  the 
influence  of  cities  upon  rural  communities  by  citing 
the  effects  of  one  city  or  another  upon  the  surrounding 
country  neighborhoods.  Cases  can  be  found  where 
rural  politics  have  been  debauched  by  urban  political 
interests ;  where  good  rural  government  has  been 
corrupted  by  city  influences ;  and  where  an  undue 
proportion  of  the  county  funds  have  been  used  for  the 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL  COMMUNITIES      77 

benefit  of  the  cities  or  towns  in  the  county  to  the 
neglect  of  rural  welfare.  Everywhere  cities  can  be 
seen  robbing  the  farms  of  their  young  people,  while 
the  farming  communities  are  forced  to  depend  for  part 
of  their  labor  upon  those  less  desirable  persons  who  go 
to  the  country  only  during  harvest. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  rural  com- 
munities which  have  been  able  to  substitute  intensive 
for  extensive  cultivation  because  of  the  enlarging 
demand  of  near-by  urban  markets,  and  which  have 
thereby  been  enabled  to  raise  their  standard  of  living, 
give  their  children  a  better  education,  and  attain  a 
higher  level  of  citizenship.  The  good  roads  in  many 
counties  have  been  built  largely  out  of  city  taxes  and 
by  city  initiative.  Over  these  roads  the  farmer  can 
reach  his  markets  the  year  round,  and  they  make  all 
the  advantages  of  the  town  continuously  available  to 
him.  Even  counties  containing  no  large  city,  but 
containing  two,  three,  or  four  large  country  towns, 
frequently  afford  a  much  richer  and  more  satisfactory 
life  for  the  farmers  living  within  them,  because  of  the 
better  roads,  schools,  churches,  newspapers,  theaters, 
the  electric  light  and  telephone  service,  and  other 
advantages  which  the  large  towns  bring  within  the 
reach  of  the  farmers. 

Recognition  of  the  mutual  benefits  to  town  and 
country  which  are  possible  when  the  two  elements 
cooperate  for  the  general  welfare  is  important.  The 
interests  of  town  and  country  are  not  antagonistic,  or 
even  separate.  Each  depends  upon  the  other,  and 
mutual  understanding  and  cooperation  can  enrich 
the  lives,  as  well  as  the  bank  accounts,  of  both. 


78  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

Whenever  a  county  is  practically  absorbed  by  a 
city,  as  by  Philadelphia,  New  York,  or  St.  Louis, 
there  is  little  use  in  discussing  the  county  as  a  rural 
problem.  Under  such  conditions,  the  life  of  the  en- 
tire county  is  absolutely  dependent  upon  and  domi- 
nated by  the  city.  But  when  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  county  remains  agricultural,  as  in  Hennepin 
County,  Minnesota,  in  which  Minneapolis  is  located, 
or  in  Kent  County,  Michigan,  which  includes  Grand 
Rapids,  the  interests  of  the  rural  section  of  the  county 
are  sufficiently  distinct  to  receive  separate  consider- 
ation. 

Such  a  situation  usually  results  in  a  continuous 
struggle  in  politics  between  the  rural  and  the  urban 
sections  of  the  county  —  a  struggle  in  which  the  rural 
interests  seldom  hold  their  own.  But  this  struggle 
for  political  control  does  not  necessarily  terminate 
in  detriment  to  either  the  urban  or  the  rural  section 
of  the  county,  though  it  does  sometimes. 

Many  counties,  of  course,  are  almost  purely  rural. 
No  town  large  enough  to  dominate  the  rural  life  is 
found  within  their  borders.  This  condition  gives 
the  farmers  entire  control  of  their  own  affairs,  but 
deprives  them,  to  a  large  extent,  of  outside  stimulus. 
Such  counties  sometimes  make  good  progress ;  some- 
times but  little  progress. 

Political  Environment  of  the  Rural  Community.  — 
We  have  already  referred  to  the  importance  of  the 
physical  environment  as  a  molding  influence  in  the 
life  of  any  country  community.  The  political  environ- 
ment, though  largely  invisible,  is  another  and  similar 
ever-present  influence.  Schools,  roads,  tax  rates, 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL  COMMUNITIES      79 

moral  conditions,  the  tone  of  the  newspapers,  and 
many  other  important  features  of  the  community's 
life  are  given  their  character,  wholly  or  in  part,  by  the 
political  conditions  that  obtain  in  the  county  and 
township.  Sometimes  the  real  source  of  an  evil  in  a 
locality  will  be  found  in  the  county  government  or  in 
the  county  political  organization. 

There  is  little  opportunity  in  a  county  for  purely 
political  issues;  i.e.,  for  a  division  of  the  people  on 
questions  of  political  principle.  In  a  county,  the 
field  of  public  problems  consists  almost  entirely  of  the 
administration  of  such  public  matters  as  the  assess- 
ment and  collection  of  taxes  ;  the  construction  of  roads 
and  bridges ;  the  drainage  of  swamps ;  the  control 
of  local  education ;  the  care  of  paupers,  criminals,  and 
defectives ;  and  the  administration  of  justice.  Such 
matters  seldom  raise  questions  of  abstract  political 
principle.  Instead,  they  require  for  their  efficient 
administration  honesty,  intelligence,  technical  skill, 
and  a  spirit  of  service. 

But  in  many  rural  communities  the  real  problems 
of  county  government  are  lost  sight  of  in  the  devo- 
tion to  parties  whose  differences,  if  they  have  any, 
are  found  in  national  political  issues  rather  than  in 
policies  of  local  administration.  "  Party  govern- 
ment," in  these  localities,  has  become  a  tradition,  an 
institution,  sometimes  almost  a  religion.  With  the 
minds  of  the  people  diverted  from  local  to  national 
issues,  county  politics  often  degenerate  into  quarrels 
over  plunder.  They  are  controlled  neither  by  the 
truly  national  issues  nor  by  the  local  issues.  The 
political  party  subordinates  its  county  interests  to  its 


8o  THE    RURAL   COMMUNITY 

national  politics,  and  the  people  in  the  end  fail  to  get 
many  of  the  benefits  which  they  should  receive  for  the 
taxes  they  pay. 

The  Social  Life.  —  The  social  life  of  a  community 
embraces  so  many  conditions  and  forces  that  the 
teacher  will  find  it  a  rich  field  for  thought  and  in- 
vestigation. Race,  nationality,  religion,  the  amount 
of  wealth,  and  the  degree  of  culture,  all  have  their 
effects  upon  the  life  of  the  community.  It  makes  a 
great  deal  of  difference  whether  a  community  is  pre- 
dominantly English,  or  German,  or  Italian ;  whether 
it  is  Catholic  or  Protestant ;  or  whether  it  is  a  mixture 
of  many  nationalities  and  diverse  religious  sects.  It 
makes  a  difference  whether  it  is  rich  or  poor ;  whether 
all  its  people  are  approximately  equal  in  wealth, 
or  whether  there  are  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty. 

It  is  important  that  the  people  of  the  community 
be  brought  into  frequent  contact  with  each  other,  and 
yet  many  rural  communities  are  split  into  groups, 
factions,  or  neighborhoods  by  barriers  of  race,  religion, 
neighborhood  quarrels,  prejudices,  and  the  like.  A 
teacher  who  endeavors  to  foster  social  intercourse  in 
her  district  will  often  find  that  the  undertaking  is  one 
that  tests  her  tact,  social  training,  and  character. 

Nearly  every  rural  community  needs  social  develop- 
ment, so  that  there  shall  be  enough  social  life  for  all 
ages  and  elements  of  the  community,  and  that  this 
social  life  shall  be  of  the  right  kind.  By  the  whole- 
someness,  fullness,  and  spontaneity  of  social  relations 
within  a  district,  the  welfare  worker  can  test  the  effec- 
tiveness of  past  education  and  endeavor,  and  the  need 
for  further  constructive  effort. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL  COMMUNITIES      81 

Religious  Institutions.  --The  home,  the  church,  and 
the  school  are  the  three  socially  fundamental  in- 
stitutions of  our  present  civilization.  Each  is  essential 
to  our  life  to-day.  When  any  one  of  them  fails  to 
recognize  or  to  perform  its  duty,  the  community, 
whether  rural  or  urban,  is  bound  to  suffer. 

Our  churches  and  schools  have  had  to  bear  a  double 
burden,  namely,  serving  the  needs  of  our  own  people, 
and  developing  and  cultivating  a  large  class  just 
recovering  from  the  effects  of  recent  serf  and  peas- 
ant life  in  Europe.  Our  cities  have  made  special 
effort  to  care  for  the  immigrant  class,  and  philan- 
thropists have  given  largely  for  the  education  of 
the  negro.  The  rural  church,  however,  has  not  held 
its  own  with  our  American  stock  —  those  who  have  at 
least  four  generations  of  ancestors  born  and  bred 
in  this  country  who  worked  and  sacrificed  for  the 
making  of  this  country.  Of  the  225,000  rural  churches 
in  the  United  States  to-day,  reliable  data  show  that 
85  per  cent  are  either  declining  or  standing  still. 

The  main  reasons  for  the  decadence  of  the  rural 
church  may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

1.  Too  many  creeds,  resulting  in  a  divided  ministry. 

2.  A  lack  of  adaptation  to  modern  conditions,  to 
scientific  intelligence,  and  particularly  to  agricultural 
needs. 

3.  The  attraction  of  the  churches  in  the  near-by 
towns  and  cities. 

4.  Inadequate  salaries  for  ministers. 

5.  Poorly  prepared  country  pastors. 

6.  The  great  social  and  economic  changes  of  the 
age.     Means  of  transportation,  shifting  land  values, 


82  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

and  the  increase  in  tenancy  in  certain  parts  of  the 
country  have  all  aided  in  making  our  people  migratory. 
It  is  difficult  for  the  rural  church  to  find  lay  leaders 
who  are  permanent  and  long-time  residents  of  the 
community. 

To  strike  at  the  root  of  this  religious  backwardness 
in  our  rural  districts,  the  right  leadership  must  be 
developed,  religion  must  be  socialized,  auxiliary  work 
must  be  inaugurated  in  trade  centers,  and  cooperation 
must  be  substituted  for  disunion  and  division.  To 
begin  with,  our  theological  seminaries  must  establish 
a  new  and  adequate  standard  for  the  country  minister. 
They  must  offer  special  courses  for  rural  service  and 
encourage  the  best  young  men  from  rural  districts  to 
train  for  the  rural  ministry.  The  Christian  Church  has 
never  needed  leaders  as  it  does  to-day,  and  it  needs 
them  nowhere  more  than  in  the  rural  district.  Rural  life 
tends  to  make  people  too  conservative  and  set  in 
their  ways  and  views.  To  combat  this  excess  of  con- 
servatism, leadership  of  a  high  order  is  necessary. 
The  church  must  work  hand  in  hand  with  all  agencies 
that  make  for  betterment  of  the  community,  economic, 
social,  and  religious.  To  succeed  in  work  of  this  nature, 
the  clergyman  must  be  equipped  at  the  seminary.  In 
addition  to  the  work  at  the  seminary,  which  ought  to 
follow  a  four  years  college  course,  some  field  work  with  a 
good  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  secretary,  and 
a  year's  work  in  an  agricultural  college,  specializing  in 
rural  social  science,  would  comprise  a  course  of  training 
that  would  make  of  an  able  and  earnest  young  man  a 
capable  rural  pastor.  It  is  not  probable  that  such  an 
ideal  course  of  training  can  be  required  of  rural  pastors 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL   COMMUNITIES     83 

in  the  immediate  future.  But  the  need  for  better  trained 
men  is  evident.  An  increase  in  rural  pastors'  salaries 
that  will  make  it  worth  while  to  secure  proper  training 
is  indispensable  to  this  end. 

But  the  clergyman  cannot  carry  the  whole  burden. 
As  a  remedy  for  the  religious  and  social  neglect  of  rural 
young  people,  specially  trained  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  and  Young  Women's  Christian  Associ- 
ation secretaries  who  can  also  teach  physical  train- 
ing and  outdoor  games  should  be  employed  in  every 
rural  trade-center,  or  at  least  in  every  rural  county. 


THE  CONSOLIDATED  RURAL  CHURCH  AT  MIDDLEFIELD,  MASSACHUSETTS 

The  union  of  the  Baptists  and  the  Congregationalists  of  this  community 

was  brought  about  by  Dr.  William  Tenny  Bartley  in  1897. 

The  country  town  is  nearly  always  a  problem  as  to  both 
morals  and  recreation.     Through  the  rural  manhood 


84  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

division  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
the  majority  of  rural  young  men  and  women  could  be 
brought  together  in  wholesome,  purposeful  activity. 
No  other  branch  of  the  organization  has  a  field  of 
more  unlimited  opportunity. 

There  is  ecclesiastical,  economic,  and  social  waste 
in  the  present  system.  The  churches  will  have  to 
federate  to  accomplish  the  needed  work.  The  Massa- 
chusetts Federation  of  Churches  is  meeting  with 
great  success  in  combining  small  church  bodies  in  rural 
districts,  and  in  thus  welding  the  community  into 
closer  social  unity. 

The  minister,  the  teacher,  the  physician,  and  the 
agricultural  agent  should  unite  their  forces  in  their 
work  for  community  betterment.  The  minister  and 
the  teacher,  in  particular,  must  stand  for  all  that  is 
upright  and  constructive.  The  rural  teacher  who 
does  not  attend  a  church  and  ally  herself  with  all  the 
forces  that  make  for  the  moral  and  spiritual  welfare 
of  the  community  is  a  detriment  rather  than  a  help 
to  the  cause  of  real  education.  The  teacher  who 
refuses  to  do  this  has  yet  to  learn  the  tremendous  re- 
sponsibility resting  upon  those  engaged  in  the  teaching 
profession. 

Industrial  Influences  on  Cultural  Conditions.  —  We 
are  often  surprised  to  learn  how  much  the  religious, 
educational,  and  social  life  of  a  people  depends  upon 
the  kind  of  work  they  do.  The  wage  earner  working 
too  many  hours  has  little  time  for  social  recreation  or 
educational  advancement.  People  who  live  beyond 
the  reach  of  churches  do  not  usually  devote  much  time 
to  religious  exercises  or  observances.  The  children 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF   RURAL   COMMUNITIES      85 

of  the  very  poor  seldom  have  much  encouragement 
or  opportunity  to  acquire  an  education.  Moreover, 
the  natures  of  many  people  are  quickly  influenced 
by  the  kind  of  work  they  do,  being  either  coarsened 
and  hardened  by  their  daily  round  of  toil,  or  refined 
and  ennobled.  Unfortunately,  there  are  many  kinds 
of  work  that  tend  to  develop  the  lower  rather  than  the 
higher  qualities  of  human  nature. 

A  knowledge  of  the  industrial  activities  of  the 
community  is  essential  to  enable  the  social  worker  or 
teacher  to  determine  what  sort  of  training  for  the  chil- 
dren of  that  particular  community  will  best  assist  them 
to  start  favorably  in  the  working  world ;  and  what 
steps  are  necessary  to  promote  local  industrial  efficiency 
and  the  welfare  of  the  workers.1 


PLAN  FOR  STUDY  OF  THE  PHYSIOGRAPHY  OF  A  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

1 .  Draw  a  map  of  your  school  district  or  community,  sketching 
in  the  boundaries  of  each  farm.     Have  the  size,  extent,  and  shape 
been  determined  in  whole  or  in  part  by  natural  barriers  or  entirely 
by  legal  requirements  ?     Indicate  the  name  of  the  owner  or  tenant 
on  each  farm;   mark  abandoned  farms  "x."     Such  a  map  will  not 
only  vitalize  geography  by  giving  the  pupils  a  practical  understand- 
ing of  what  a  map  means,  but  it  will  furnish  a  key  to  district  popu- 
lation and  a  chart  of  the  size  of  agricultural  holdings. 

2.  Sketch   in    all  hamlets,   villages,    streams,    lakes,  swamps, 
woods,  hills,  places  noted  for  beautiful  scenery,  historical  land- 
marks, schools,  churches,  grist  mills,  saw  mills,     and  any  other 
places  of  interest.     These  facts  will  teach  local  geography,  unearth 
much  interesting  history,  and  point  out  undeveloped  resources. 

1  Suggestions  for  the  detailed  study  of  the  local  industrial  situation 
will  be  found  at  the  end  of  Chapter  III. 


86  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

3.  Indicate  the  vicinities  in  which  flowering  trees,  shrubs,  and 
wild  flowers  are  found.     While  collecting  this  information,  it  is 
wise  to  learn  the  different  kinds  of  trees,  birds,  and  wild  animals 
found  in  the  district.     This  will  give  vitality  and  interest  to  the 
nature  study  work  given  in  the  school. 

4.  Are  there  evidences  that  Indians  once  lived  in  this  neighbor- 
hood?    Locate  such  evidences  in  case  there  are  mounds  or  other 
Indian  burying  grounds.     To  what   nation   and  tribe   did  they 
belong  ? 

5.  Have  each  member  of  your  reading  circle  make  a  series  of 
maps  showing  some  of  the  details  of  the  social,  religious,  and  indus- 
trial life  of  the  district  in  which  she  teaches.     Before  gathering  the 
data  for  these  maps,  discuss  in  meeting  all  the  important  and  un- 
usual features  of  each  district  represented  by  the  members  of  the 
circle.     These  maps  should  be  brought  to  the  circle  meetings  as  soon 
as  they  are  completed.     They  will  add  greatly  to  the  interest  of 
the  next  five  lessons. 

QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 
Physiography 

1 .  What  is  the  average  temperature  in  the  district  in  January 
and  February?     In  July  and  August? 

2.  Are  crops  ever  killed  by  frost  ?     By  drought  ?     Frequently  ? 

3.  Is  the  district  subject  to  cyclones  and  other  unusual  storms? 

Population 

1.  What  is  the  density  of  population   for  your   State?     For 
your  county?     For  your  district?     Locate  least  populous  sections 
and  most  populous.     Why  do  these  differences  obtain? 

2.  What  nationalities  have  given  this  country  her  best  farmers? 

3.  What  nationalities   do   we  rarely,  if  ever,  find  engaged  in 
farming?     How  do  you  account  for  this  fact? 

4.  Do  newly  arrived  immigrants  employ  the  same  methods  in 
farming  as  do  our  American  farmers?     Explain  your  answer. 

5.  Discuss  the  original  make-up  of  the  American  people. 

6.  What    nationalities    predominated  in  this   country  before 
1870? 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    RURAL   COMMUNITIES     87 

7.  Discuss  immigration  to  this  country  since  1870. 

8.  What  effect  has  this  later  immigration  had  upon  the  United 
States  socially,  industrially,  and  educationally? 

9.  Discuss  the  merits  and  demerits  of  each  of  the  great  streams 
of  immigration  to  this  country. 

10.    Discuss  the  immigration  laws  passed  by  the  United  States 
during  the  past  forty  years. 

Political  Conditions 

1 .  What  do  you  understand  by  a  political  division  of  a  country  ? 
A  territorial  division  ? 

2.  Discuss  the  township  as  found  in  the  United  States. 

3.  Discuss  the  county  as  found  in  the  United  States. 

4.  In  what  ways  do  the  states  exercise  control  over  their  cities  ? 
Over  their  towns  and  villages?     Over  the  rural  districts? 

5.  Locate  on  a  map  the  most  populous  sections  of  the  United 
States.     Why   are   these   sections   so   populous?     Consider   your 
State  in  this  manner. 

6.  What  are  the  advantages  of  incorporation  to  a  major  town  ? 
What  are  the  disadvantages  ?    To  a  minor  city  ? 

7.  What  do  you  understand  by  a  highly  centralized  govern- 
ment ?     Why  does  the  government  of  a  nation  tend  to  become  more 
highly  centralized  as  it  grows  older?     Is  there  such  a  tendency  in 
this  country? 

8.  In  how  many  ways  is  a  county  generally  organized  ? 

9.  To  what  conditions  is  most  of  the  political  corruption  in 
counties  due? 

10.  What  are  the  chief  merits  of  a  civil  service  system  based  on 
merit? 

11.  Is  there  political  corruption  in  your  county?     If  so,  what 
are  the  reasons  for  it  ? 

12.  How  many  district,  school,  township,  county,  state,  and 
national  officers  reside  in  your  community? 

13.  What  is  the  local  unit  of  government  in  your  State  —  the 
township  or  the  county?     What  is  the  territorial  unit  below  the 
township?    Above  the  township?     Below  the  state? 

14.  What  political  parties  are  represented  in  your  community? 
Are  there  political  organizations  other  than  political  parties? 


88  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

15.  Are  there  naturalized  citizens  among  the  voters?     Do  all 
those  eligible  to  vote  use  their  franchise  ?     If  not,  why  not  ? 

1 6.  Are  the  voters  interested  in  local,  state,  and  national  issues? 
Do  they  discuss  these  issues  understandingly  ? 

Religious  Conditions 

1.  Distinguish  between  religion,  creed,  sect,  denomination. 

2.  Name  at  least  four  fundamental  principles  upon  which  all 
creeds  should  be  able  to  agree.      How  can  the  present  number  of 
creeds  be  diminished? 

3.  Is  it  the  essentials  or  the  non-essentials  of  religion  that  have 
given  rise  to  so  many  creeds? 

4.  What  is  the  fundamental  purpose  of  religious  organizations  ? 

5.  Why  do  ministers  and  teachers  generally  prefer  to  work 
in  the  city  rather  than  in  the  rural  district  ?     Can  the  rural  district 
remedy  this  condition  of  affairs,  or  does  the  fault  lie  with  the 
ministers  and  the  teachers? 

6.  State  some  facts  that  tend  to  prove  that  people's  conceptions 
along  religious  lines  change  somewhat  from  generation  to  generation. 

7.  What   do   you   understand   by   the   ''socialization   of   the 
church"?     Do  you  think  this  socialization  of  the  church  can  be 
overdone  ? 

8.  Name  some  of  the  conditions  that  have  arisen  during  the 
past  twenty-five  years  that  are  drawing  people  away  from  the 
church. 

9.  Could  you  expect  strong  churches  in  a  community  made 
up  entirely  of  tenants  ? 

10.  Do  you  think  a  city  born,  bred,  and  educated  minister 
should  be  sent  to  a  rural  church  ?     Defend  you  opinion. 

11.  How  many  churches  are  there  in  your  community?     How 
many  creeds  do  they  represent?     Are  these  creeds  progressive  or 
conservative  ? 

12.  How  many  Sunday  Schools  are  there?     How  many  young 
people's  societies  ?    What  percentage  of  the  young  people  do  these 
organizations  enroll? 

13.  Are  the  pastors  residents  of  the  rural  district  or  do  they  live 
in  town?     Are  they  foreign  or  American  born,  bred,  and  educated ? 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL   COMMUNITIES      89 

14.  What  is  the  membership  of  each  church  ?     What  percentage 
of  the  members  are  men?    Women?     Could  fewer  churches  care 
for  the  people?     Are  the  churches  "dead"  or  "alive"? 

15.  Are  the  pastors  ready  and  willing  to  work  with  the  teacher 
for  the  betterment  of  the  community  ?     Do  the  pastors  work  with 
each  other  for  the  good  of  the  community  ? 

Social  Life 

1 .  Is  the  social  life  in  the  rural  community  in  the  United  States 
more  democratic  than  in  the  city  ? 

2.  Make  out  a  list  of  the  twenty-four  social  events  for  your 
community  covering  the  entire  year.     Arrange  these  events  accord- 
ing to  the  seasons.     Allow  four  events  to  the  entire  community, 
ten  for  the  young  people,  six  for  the  women,  four  for  the  men. 
Name  some  social  gatherings  that  always  occur  in  summer.     In 
winter.     Arrange  three  programs  for  social  gatherings  that  will  be 
new  and  successful. 

3.  Make  out  a  list  of  the  social  events  of  your  community 
during  the  past  year.     In  what  ways  did  these  gatherings  contribute 
to  the  welfare  of  the  community  ? 

REFERENCES 

Physiography 

GALPIN,  CHARLES  JOSIAH.    Rural  Life,  Chapters  I-II.    The  Century 

Co.,  1918. 
LESCOHIER,  DON  D.     The  Labor  Market,  Chapter  XIV.   The  Mac- 

millan  Company,  1919. 

Aspect  of  Rural  Life 

GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.     Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapter  III. 

The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 
TOWNE,  EZRA  T.      Social  Problems,  Chapter   I.    The  Macmillan 

Company,  New  York,  1916. 
VOGT,  PAUL  L.     Introduction    to    Rural    Sociology,    Chapter    II. 

D.  Appleton  and  Company,  New  York,  1917. 


90  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

Population 

ARONOVICI,  CAROL.  Americanization.  (Read  carefully  this  entire 
work.)  Keller  Publishing  Co.,  St.  Paul,  Minn.,  1919. 

BOGARDUS,  EMORY  S.  Americanization.  The  entire  work.  Uni- 
versity of  Southern  California  Press,  Los  Angeles,  1920. 

DAVIS,  PHILIP.  Immigration  and  Americanization.  Ginn  and 
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LESCOHIER,  DON  D.  Americanization.  (In  preparation  at  date 
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Ross,  EDWARD  A.  The  Old  World  in  the  New.  The  entire  book. 
Give  special  care  to  Chapters  I,  IX,  X,  XI,  XII.  The  Century 
Company,  New  York,  1914. 

TOWNE,  EZRA  T.  Social  Problems,  Chapters  II,  III.  The  Macmil- 
lan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 

Political  Conditions 

DOLE,  CHARLES  F.  The  Young  Citizen.  The  entire  book.  D.  C. 
Heath  &  Co.,  Boston,  1899. 

FORMAN,  SAMUEL  E.  The  American  Republic,  Chapters  I,  II,  VIII, 
IX,  XI,  XII.  The  Century  Company,  New  York,  1917. 

GARNER,  JAMES  W.  Government  in  the  United  States,  Chapters  I,  II. 
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GUITTEAU,  WILLIAM  B.  Government  and  Politics  in  the  United  States, 
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.  Preparing  for  Citizenship,  Chapters  I-X.  Houghton 

Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  1913. 

HART,  ALBERT  B.  Actual  Government  as  Applied  under  American 
Conditions,  Chapters  I-V;  X-XII;  XXVIII-XXX.  Long- 
mans, Green,  and  Company,  New  York,  1919. 

The    Teaching   of    Community   Civics.     Bulletin   23 

(1915),  United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington  D.  C. 

Religious  Conditions 

BEARD,  AUGUSTUS  F.  The  Story  of  John  Frederick  Oberlin.  The 
entire  work.  Pilgrim  Press,  Boston,  1909. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  RURAL   COMMUNITIES      91 

BRICKER,    GARLAND    A.     Solving    the    Country    Church    Problem. 

Chapters  I,  II,  IV,  V,  VI,  VIII,  IX,  XII,  XIV,  XVI,  XVII. 

The  Jennings  and  Graham  Company,  Cincinnati,  1913. 
CARVER,  THOMAS  NIXON.     Principles  of  Rural  Economics,  Chapter 

VI.     Ginn  and  Company,  Boston,  1911. 
GILLETTE,    JOHN  M.     Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapter  XV. 

The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 
GROVES,  ERNEST  R.     Using  the  Resources  of  the  Country  Church, 

Chapters  I,  II,  IV,  VI,  VIII,  XII.    Association  Press,  New 

York,  1917. 
WILSON,  WARREN  H.     The  Church  of  the  Open  Country,  Chapters 

I,  II,  IV,  V,  VII,  VIII.     The  Missionary  Education  Move- 
ment, New  York,  1911. 

Social  Life 

BUTTERFIELD,  KENYON  L.     Chapters  in  Rural  Progress,  Chapter 

XL     University  of  Chicago  Press,  Chicago,  1908. 
CROW,  MARTHA  F.     The  American  Country  Girl.    The  entire  work. 

Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company,  New  York,  1915. 
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Introduction   and   Parts    I,    II,    III.     Ginn   and    Company, 

Boston,  1914. 
FISKE,  GEORGE  W.     The  Challenge  of  the  Country,  Chapters   II, 

PP-  39-47  5  V,  pp.  1 17-139.    Association  Press,  New  York,  1912. 
GALPIN,  CHARLES  JOSIAH.     Rural  Social  Problems.    Fourth  Annual 

Report  of  the  Wisconsin  Country   Life  Conference.     Bulletin 

No.  711,  College  of  Agriculture,  University  of  Wisconsin. 
GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.     Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapter  VI. 

The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 
TAYLOR,  HENRY  C.    Agricultural  Economics,  Chapter  XXX.    The 

Macmillan  Company,  1919. 


CHAPTER  V 

SOCIALLY  DEFECTIVE  INDIVIDUALS  IN  RURAL 
COMMUNITIES 

Inequality  of  capacity  and  of  attainment  is  character- 
istic of  the  individuals  of  every  community,  urban  or 
rural,  in  America  or  in  any  other  land.  When  the 
men  who  wrote  our  Declaration  of  Independence 
declared  that  all  men  were  equal,  they  did  not  say, 
nor  did  they  believe,  that  all  men  are  equal  in  capacity. 
They  said  that  all  men  have  an  equal  right  to  life,  to 
liberty,  and  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Equality  of 
opportunity  to  make  the  most  of  our  selves,  in  propor- 
tion to  our  varying  abilities  and  degrees  of  industry,  was 
the  right  which  they  fought  to  secure  for  us.  None 
recognized  more  clearly  than  they  that  men  cannot  all 
run  with  the  same  speed,  work  with  the  same  energy, 
think  with  the  same  clearness,  save  with  the  same 
thriftiness. 

These  differences  between  men  would  not  constitute 
a  serious  social  problem  if  all  men  were  possessed  of 
normal  faculties  and  able  to  care  for  themselves.  But, 
unfortunately,  nearly  every  community  has  in  its 
midst,  or  has  sent  to  asylum  or  jail,  persons  who  are 
feeble-minded,  crippled,  epileptic,  insane,  or  criminal. 
Some  of  these  defectives  are  in  a  much  worse  condition 
than  others,  but  none  of  them  can  safely  be  left  to 
make  their  way  in  the  world  alone. 

92 


SOCIALLY  DEFECTIVE  INDIVIDUALS  93 

Before  discussing  in  detail  the  various  classes  of 
defectives,  dependents,  and  delinquents  who  are  found 
in  rural  as  well  as  in  urban  communities,  it  will  be  worth 
while  to  note  the  facts  of  inequality  as  observed  among 
those  whom  we  may  call  "  normal  "  people.  By  far 
the  larger  part  of  society  is  made  up  of  what  we  know 
as  the  normal  or  average  individual.  There  are  also 
certain  individuals  recognized  by  their  fellows  as 
above  the  average  in  mental  or  moral  attainments, 
and  there  are  others  falling  below  the  average  into  a 
state  which  mankind  in  general  calls  defective.  There 
are  those  in  every  farm  community  who  seldom  or 
never  get  good  crops  while  their  neighbors  on  adjoin- 
ing farms  raise  satisfactory  crops  year  after  year. 
There  are  those  who  never  succeed  in  rising  above 
the  ranks  of  the  day  laborer,  while  a  majority  of  those 
who  started  on  the  same  level  with  them  are  attaining 
farm  ownership  and  independence.  Some  start  with 
nothing  and  achieve  a  competence ;  others  inherit  a 
competence  and  end  their  lives  in  poverty.  These 
differences  in  life-results  are  due  largely  to  the  natural 
endowment  of  the  individuals  and  to  their  early  home 
life,  partly  to  differences  in  their  mental  and  moral 
training,  and,  less  frequently,  to  differences  in  oppor- 
tunity. When  we  turn  our  attention  entirely  to  those 
who  have  succeeded,  we  again  observe  inequality,  for 
not  all  are  equally  successful ;  not  all  are  equally 
gifted. 

The  subnormal  are  just  as  unequal.  The  mental, 
moral,  and  physical  defectives  of  every  human  kind 
vary  in  the  degrees  and  types  of  their  subnormality. 
Mental  defectives  range  from  those  who  are  simply 


94  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

dull  to  the  idiotic  and  the  insane :  physical  defectives, 
from  the  frail  to  the  paralytics ;  moral  defectives  from 
those  who  lack  the  will  or  capacity  to  attain  the 
moral  standards  accepted  by  the  community  as  proper, 
to  those  who  are  vicious  and  criminal. 

These  physical,  mental,  and  moral  defects  are  in 
some  cases  congenital  and  in  some  cases  incurred  during 
the  individual's  lifetime.  For  instance,  some  of  the 
deaf,  dumb,  and  blind  are  born  with  their  limitations ; 
others  are  born  normal  and  become  deaf,  dumb,  or 
blind  through  disease  or  accident.  On  the  whole,  those 
who  are  born  normal  are  probably  less  severely 
hampered.  Congenital  physical  defects  often  find 
their  origin  in  a  diseased  condition  of  the  parents, 
or  in  inherited  nervous  weakness,  and  are  therefore 
the  manifestations  of  a  defective  physical  constitu- 
tion. Accidental  defects,  however,  such  as  the  blind- 
ness often  due  to  the  carelessness  or  incompetence  of 
the  attending  physician  at  the  time  of  birth  do  not  neces- 
sarily imply  any  deficiency  in  the  person's  physical  con- 
stitution. 

The  same  is  true  of  those  defects  of  hearing,  sight, 
and  the  respiratory  organs  which  are  due  to  such 
diseases  as  scarlet  fever,  or  of  the  lameness  due  to  in- 
fantile paralysis.  Such  defects  are  probably  more 
prevalent  in  rural  than  in  city  districts  in  proportion 
to  the  population,  because  the  services  of  a  competent 
physician  are  more  difficult  to  obtain. 

Industrial  accidents  are  more  common  in  some  city 
industries  than  in  agriculture,  owing  to  the  greater 
number  of  persons  engaged  in  the  manufacturing  in- 
dustries, but  recent  investigations  of  farm  accidents 


SOCIALLY  DEFECTIVE  INDIVIDUALS  95 

have  shown  a  startling  accident  rate  in  agriculture. 
Fatal  or  serious  accidents  are  frequently  caused  on 
the  farm  by  steam  threshing  machines,  corn  shelters, 
and  other  kinds  of  power  machinery ;  while  horses, 
cattle,  and  heavy  materials  have  always  been  the 
causes  of  frequent  serious  injuries.  With  the  increased 
knowledge  of  physical  reconstruction  which  has  de- 
veloped during  the  war,  it  is  entirely  possible  that  all 
those  not  totally  incapacitated  may  be  so  fitted  with 
artificial  limbs  and  so  trained  that  this  type  of  the 
physically  defective  need  not  continue  to  be  a  drain 
upon  public  benevolence.  The  teacher  in  a  rural 
district  should  be  alert  to  direct  the  attention  of  the 
people  in  her  district  to  all  available  means  of  re- 
lief for  remediable  defects. 

Types  of  Defectives.  —  Some  children  are  born  with- 
out capacity  or  with  only  a  limited  capacity  for  mental 
development.  Others  receive  some  shock  or  are  sub- 
jected to  disease  or  to  unfortunate  environment  with 
the  result  that  their  mental  development  is  arrested  at 
an  early  stage.  At  the  bottom  of  the  mental  scale 
are  the  idiots,  whose  mentality  ranges  from  absolute 
zero  to  that  of  a  normal  child  of  three  years.  Imbe- 
ciles have  capacity  to  attain  the  mental  development  of 
a  normal  child  of  from  three  to  seven  years ;  while  the 
morons  are  those  whose  mentality  is  similar  to  that  of 
a  normal  child  of  from  seven  to  twelve  years. 

It  is  probably  needless  to  say  that  no  hard-and-fast 
lines  can  be  drawn  between  these  various  classes,  and 
that  there  are  many  persons  who  cannot  be  included 
in  these  classes  who  have  mental  peculiarities  which 
interfere  with  their  success  in  life.  Their  minds  are 


96  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

often  active  but  ill-balanced,  resulting  in  defective 
judgment  and  poor  self-direction.  It  must  also  be 
remembered  that  when  the  psychologist  says  that  an 
adult  has  a  mind  equal  to  that  of  a  five-year-old  child, 
he  does  not  mean  that  the  adult  has  the  mind  of  a 
five-year-old  child.  For  even  the  mental  defective 
has  a  wider  experience  than  a  child  and  a  differ- 
ent physical  development.  His  emotional  responses, 
as  well  as  his  mental  and  physical  responses,  will  be 
modified  by  the  fact  that  he  is  an  adult.  What  is 
meant  is  that  his  capacity  to  acquire  knowledge  and  to 
reason  is  subject  to  the  limitations  of  the  mind  of  an 
average  child  of  the  age  named. 

Persons  who  are  born  mentally  abnormal  are  re- 
ferred to  by  psychologists  as  "  aments,"  while  those 
who  reach  maturity  with  apparently  normal  minds 
and  then  lose  their  mental  control  and  balance  are 
known  as  "  dements."  Dementia  or  insanity  is  of 
varying  degrees  of  severity,  and  often  has  an  hereditary 
basis  in  a  "  predisposition  "  or  weakness,  which  causes 
persons  who  lack  mental  stability  to  break  down 
under  some  life  strain  or  stress.  Sometimes  it  is  due 
to  a  deterioration  of  the  physical  structure  of  the 
brain,  due  to  the  so-called  social  diseases,  and  certain 
other  diseases.  In  many  cases  of  insanity  among 
wives  of  farmers,  the  particular  strain  which  brings 
about  the  breakdown  has  been  found  in  monotony, 
isolation,  and  overwork.  The  automobile  and  rural 
telephone  should  do  much  to  relieve  this  particular 
strain. 

Epilepsy  is  another  form  of  ill-balanced  mentality. 
Its  causes  are  unknown.  The  person  so  afflicted  is 


SOCIALLY  DEFECTIVE  INDIVIDUALS  97 

usually  of  an  attractive  personality  between  "  spells," 
but  the  fact  that  these  attacks  cannot  be  foretold, 
and  that  they  leave  the  patient  in  an  exhausted  con- 
dition, render  it  difficult  for  those  so  afflicted  to  be 
economically  independent.  Owing  to  the  bad  effect 
which  seeing  attacks  of  epilepsy  has  upon  children 
and  adults  alike,  it  is  desirable  that  those  subject  to 
frequent  and  severe  attacks  should  not  mingle  in  general 
society  ;  and  for  their  own  good  they  should  be  guarded 
from  any  stress  which  may  aggravate  the  trouble. 
These  patients  are  unable  to  adapt  themselves  to  the 
conditions  of  a  complex  society. 

Teachers  and  other  rural  leaders  can  do  much  to 
alleviate  the  condition  of  the  insane  and  the  epileptic 
in  their  communities,  by  disseminating  correct  infor- 
mation about  them.  Many  people  still  believe  that 
the  cause  of  these  forms  of  disease  is  possession  by  some 
evil  spirit.  Others  consider  insanity  and  epilepsy  a 
disgrace.  Neither  assumption  is  true,  any  more  than 
is  the  case  with  other  diseases.  People  abhor  them 
because  they  do  not  understand  them.  Some  physical 
or  nervous  defect  as  yet  unascertained  is  undoubtedly 
at  the  root  of  the  trouble  in  many  kinds  of  insanity. 
While  endeavoring  to  secure  the  best  kind  of  treatment 
for  these  unfortunates,  the  social  worker  in  rural  com- 
munities can  also  do  something  to  remove  the  stigma 
from  the  families  of  those  so  afflicted,  through  educa- 
tion of  the  popular  mind. 

The  most  noticeable  class  of  moral  defectives  are 
certain  types  of  criminals.  Recent  studies  in  psycho- 
pathic wards  have  disclosed  the  fact  that  many  who 
have  been  classed  as  criminals  are  in  fact  high  grade 


98  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

morons  or  other  types  of  subnormal  persons  whose 
mental  defects  have  not  been  discovered  until  they 
have  committed  crimes.  In  other  cases,  criminals 
are  made  by  their  environment ;  by  their  sense  of  the 
injustice  of  the  existing  social  order  ;  by  their  training  in 
early  life ;  or  by  the  fact  that  they  are  naturally  of 
a  weak  character  or  of  low  vitality  and  cannot  withstand 
the  stress  and  strain  of  life's  temptations.1  Some 
are  anachronisms ;  they  belong  to  a  period  of  history 
not  our  own,  and  perhaps  in  some  less  organized  society 
would  have  been  the  heroes  of  song  and  story.  Many 
of  the  automobile  bandits  and  the  daring  daylight 
robbers  may  perhaps  come  under  this  classification. 
They  are  possessed  of  a  spirit  of  daring  and  deviltry 
for  which  there  is  no  place  in  our  complex  social  or- 
ganization. However,  there  are  undoubtedly  many 
criminals  who  are  such  simply  because  they  have 
become  embittered  against  society  or  have  not  been 
properly  prepared  for  life.  They  are  the  Ishmaels  of 
our  times.  Crime  is  to  them  both  a  game  and  a  means 
of  livelihood.  They  hunt  men  as  men  hunt  game, 
seeking  to  get  what  they  can  without  giving  anything 
in  return. 

But  this  is  only  one  side  of  the  case.  If  there  are 
found  in  society  individuals  of  an  unsocial  and  anti- 

1  "I  appeal  to  those  who  have  charge  of  our  reformatories  to  know 
if  crimes  now  are  not  mostly  due  to  diseased  bodies  or  brains,  or  to 
defective  mentality;  to  minds  over-clouded  by  brooding  among 
shadows ;  or  due  to  lowered  resistance,  to  low  vitality,  and  the  stimu- 
lants craved  as  an  offset  to  low  vitality;  to  the  over-close  contact 
forced  by  congested  living,  and  the  nervous  irritability  due  to  the  fore- 
going conditions."  —  Mrs.  Albion  Fellows  Bacon,  in  Conference  on 
Social  Work,  1917,  p.  198. 


SOCIALLY  DEFECTIVE  INDIVIDUALS  99 

social  character,  there  are  also  distinctly  criminal 
classes  which  breed  and  train  their  own  kind.  Crimi- 
nals are  made  both  by  heredity  and  by  environment, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  state  which  is  the  stronger  force ; 
but  the  children  of  criminal  classes  are  the  victims  of 
both. 

The  rural  districts  are  not  afflicted  by  a  criminal 
class  to  the  same  extent  as  are  the  cities.  The  tendency 
of  the  habitual  criminal  is  to  drift  to  the  city  because 
there  he  feels  himself  to  be  less  conspicuous  and  less 
lonely  than  in  the  country,  and  because  personal  con- 
duct in  the  country  cannot  well  be  concealed.  A  large 
proportion  of  the  actual  crime  in  rural  communities  is 
committed  by  hoboes  and  by  the  transient  laboring 
classes  which  invade  many  agricultural  districts  in  re- 
sponse to  the  demand  for  seasonal  labor. 

The  'willing  pauper  is  another  type  of  moral  de- 
fective. A  willing  pauper  is  a  destitute  person  who  is 
habitually  and  willingly  dependent  upon  charity. 
With  him,  pauperism  is  a  condition  of  character  - 
a  weakness  and  instability  which  has  reduced  a  person 
who  often  appears  to  be  otherwise  mentally  and 
physically  sound,  to  a  state  in  which  he  does  not  sup- 
port himself  nor  assume  the  responsibilities  of  normal 
life.  He  poses  as  the  victim  of  misfortune,  but  in 
fact  desires  only  to  live  as  a  parasite.  He  is  morally 
incapable  of  working  regularly.  He  has  neither  self- 
respect  nor  self-reliance.  Such  paupers  are  usually 
dependent  upon  public  almshouses  and  county  farms 
for  the  necessities  of  their  existence,  though  some  are 
supported  in  their  homes  by  means  of  private  charity. 

The  expression  "  willing  pauper  "  is  used  in  speaking 


100  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

of  them  because  there  are  many  persons  classified  in 
our  statistics  as  paupers  who  receive  charitable  assist- 
ance unwillingly.  Old  age,  sickness,  unemployment, 
the  death  of  a  wage  earner  or  of  a  child's  parents, 
compel  many  persons  to  receive  aid  who  would  prefer 
to  be  self-supporting.  Legally,  and  statistically,  such 
persons  are  paupers ;  morally,  they  are  not. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  should  be  noted  that  too  free 
a  charity  often  results  in  the  pauperization  of  its  re- 
cipients. 

In  rural  districts,  these  dependents  are  often  cared 
for  in  county  poor  farms,  where  the  honest  person  and 
the  willing  pauper  unfortunately  meet  on  equal  terms 
and  in  daily  association.  In  other  cases  they  receive 
what  is  known  as  "  out-door  "  relief  from  the  county; 
that  is,  some  support  is  given  them  in  their  homes.  Nei- 
ther method  is  really  satisfactory.  The  almshouses  are 
often  badly  conducted.  Thousands  of  children  are 
born  each  year  in  almshouses,  to  continue  lines  of 
heredity  that  should  be  decisively  terminated.  Young 
children  are  often  housed  among  professional  paupers 
and  persons  of  vicious  habits  and  go  out  into  the  world 
with  ideas  of  life  that  almost  inevitably  bring  them  back 
to  the  almshouse,  to  the  insane  asylum,  or  to  the  jail. 
Out-door  relief,  on  the  other  hand,  is  generally  in  the 
hands  of  men  who  are  ignorant  of  the  conditions  which 
breed  pauperism  and  of  the  significance  of  the  facts 
of  pauperism,  and  is  so  ignorantly  administered  that 
it  too  often  results  in  building  up  a  permanent  class  of 
dependents. 

The  term  juvenile  delinquent  is  used  to  designate  all 
children  and  young  people  who,  being  of  an  age  at 


SOCIALLY   DEFECTJV£/>J#p;iViqU/*LS  101 


which  the  law  recognizes  accountability,  have  trans- 
gressed the  law.  All  such  offenders  from  seven  to  seven- 
teen years  of  age  are  included  in  this  class.  They 
are  either  placed  under  the  care  of  a  probation  officer 
or  committed  to  a  reformatory  institution.  The  na- 
ture of  the  offense  and  the  general  conditions  of  the 
offender  determine  the  action  of  the  court  in  doing  what 
it  deems  necessary  for  the  child  and  for  society  under 
the  existing  laws  of  the  state.  Little  has  been  done 
in  rural  communities  to  care  for  juvenile  delinquents 
in  any  adequate  manner.  In  many  states  children 
are  tried  as  criminals  in  adult  courts,  and  in  some 
states  where  a  juvenile  court  has  been  established, 
only  one-half  of  the  courts  so  established  have  paid 
probation  officers.  However,  there  is  a  growing  in- 
terest in  the  subject,  and  there  are  juvenile  courts  or 
probation  officers  covering  rural  districts  in  no  less 
than  eighteen  states. 

Another  class  of  defectives  are  the  habitual  drug- 
takers,  commonly  known  as  "  drug  fiends."  Medi- 
cal experts  generally  admit  that  the  use  of  habit-form- 
ing drugs  has  greatly  increased  in  the  United  States 
during  the  past  ten  years,  in  spite  of  restrictive  legis- 
lation. 

The  drug  habit  is,  of  course,  not  transmitted  by 
heredity,  but  the  weakness  which  drugs  satisfy  may 
persist  in  a  family  for  generations.  A  tendency  toward 
the  drug  habit  may  thus  be  characteristic  of  a  certain 
line  of  descent.  Except  in  the  underworld,  where  the 
gang  spirit  and  the  constant  search  for  new  sensation 
are  largely  responsible  for  the  habit,  the  use  of  drugs 
is  ordinarily  due  to  the  injudicious  nurse  or  physician, 


102  TItE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

or  to  the  patent  medicine  vendor.  Physicians  relieve 
intense  suffering  in  response  to  the  pleading  of  a  pa- 
tient, and  frequently  the  habit  of  taking  the  drug  is 
unconsciously  started. 

The  broad  and  easy  road  to  drug  addiction  is  the  use 
of  patent  medicines,  especially  headache  and  sleeping 
potions.  While  druggists  are  forbidden  by  law  to 
prescribe,  they  can,  nevertheless,  advise ;  and  the 
temptation  to  advise  the  use  of  the  medicines  they 
have  for  sale  is  often  too  great  for  people  of  strong 
commercial  tendencies  to  withstand. 

Drug-takers  are  so  sensitive  and  secretive  that  no 
enforced  restrictive  legislation  will  ever  reveal  them 
all  in  any  community.  It  will,  however,  reveal  the 
majority  of  them.  Probably  the  best  example  of  legis- 
lation against  the  illicit  traffic  in  drugs  is  the  Boylan 
Act,  which  went  into  effect  in  New  York  State  on 
July  I,  1914.  As  a  result  of  this  Act,  thousands  of 
these  victims  appealed  to  the  hospitals  for  cures.  On 
March  i,  1915,  the  Harrison  Act,  passed  by  Congress, 
put  habit- forming  drugs  under  federal  control.  Under 
the  provisions  of  this  Act,  no  druggist  can  dispense 
any  opium  derivative  or  any  drug  derived  from  cocoa 
leaves  unless  it  is  prescribed  by  a  physician,  in  which 
case  the  physician's  narcotic  number  must  be  attached 
to  the  prescription,  as  well  as  his  home  address  and 
place  of  business,  and  the  patient's  full  name  and 
address. 

Degeneration  signifies  a  deteriorated  condition,  a 
declining  in  qualities.  There  are  physical,  mental, 
and  moral  degenerates.  Such  persons  have  been  re- 
duced from  a  higher  to  a  lower  condition  or  type.  A 


SOCIALLY    DEFECTIVE    INDIVIDUALS  103 

person  may  degenerate  without  becoming  defective, 
yet  degeneracy  very  soon  leads  to  defectiveness,  and 
it  underlies  much  of  our  poverty,  pauperism,  and 
crime. 

The  annual  cost  in  dollars  and  cents  of  supporting 
the  immense  number  of  defectives  in  the  United  States, 
not  including  the  cost  of  crime,  is  estimated  to  be  about 
$400,000,000.  Add  to  this  the  enormous  loss  in  un- 
developed ability,  as  well  as  the  unknown  expendi- 
ture of  time  and  energy  on  the  part  of  physicians, 
nurses,  teachers,  and  social  workers,  and  it  is  evi- 
dent that  effective  measures  must  be  taken  to  stop  "  the 
propagation  of  these  social  defectives  who  underrun 
society  like. devil- grass"  Up  to  the  present  time  our 
methods  of  distributing  charity  have  actually  helped 
the  defective  to  propagate  his  kind  instead  of  pre- 
venting him  from  doing  so.  But  such  methods  must 
be  stopped.  Just  as  state  commissions  have  suc- 
ceeded in  controlling  the  spread  of  the  gypsy  moth, 
the  boll  weevil,  and  the  foot-and-mouth  disease,  so 
effective  measures  must  check  the  increase  of  de- 
fectives and  in  course  of  time  eliminate  them  from  our 
social  fabric. 

The  New  Attitude  toward  the  Subnormal.  - 
Through  all  the  ages  of  history  until  recently  the 
feeble-minded,  the  demented,  the  halt,  the  maimed, 
the  blind,  and  the  infirm,  have  been  subject  to  more  or 
less  ridicule  and  cruelty.  But  within  the  past  twenty- 
five  years  a  remarkable  change  has  taken  place  in  the 
public  attitude  toward  these  unfortunates.  The  study 
of  the  social  and  physical  causes  which  produce  de- 
fectives has  partly  awakened  the  public  conscience. 


104  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

Our  states  are  beginning  to  abolish  the  words  "  Insane 
Asylum"  from  their  statute  books  and  to  substitute 
the  name  "  Hospital  for  the  Insane."  The  change  of 
name  reflects  a  complete  change  in  the  point  of  view. 
An  asylum  is  a  place  of  refuge,  a  place  of  hiding,  of  se- 
clusion. A  hospital  is  a  curative  institution  which 
exists  to  relieve  and  to  discharge  the  patient  well  and 
strong  into  normal  living.  In  the  hospitals  for  the 
insane  the  inmates  are  given  special  treatment  adapted 
to  their  particular  conditions.  Though  we  are  still 
far  from  having  attained  the  skill  in  treating  mental 
diseases  that  we  have  attained  in  treating  other  sorts 
of  ailments,  distinct  progress  is  being  made.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  general  public  is  not  so  well  informed 
along  these  lines  as  it  needs  to  be,  while  in  many  insti- 
tutions the  unfortunate  inmates  are  still  the  victims 
of  much  cruelty  and  illtreatment,  due  to  the  ignorance 
of  the  attendants. 

It  is  necessary,  if  we  are  to  reduce  materially  the 
number  of  defectives  in  the  nation,  that  there  be  a 
more  widespread  knowledge  as  to  the  conditions  which 
produce  these  types.  Moreover,  our  schools  must  be 
made  to  serve  all  the  children  of  all  the  people,  of  every 
capacity  and  every  class  ;  and  education  must  be  more 
than  a  matter  of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic. 
It  is  time  to  recognize  that  home  conditions,  the  public 
health,  recreation  conditions,  and  school  conditions  are 
but  different  aspects  of  the  life  of  the  same  group  of 
people,  and  that  no  one  of  them  can  be  administered 
without  taking  the  others  into  account.  The  goal  of 
America's  educational  system,  urban  and  rural,  must 
be  that  every  child  of  whatever  capacity,  in  and  out 


SOCIALLY   DEFECTIVE   INDIVIDUALS  105 

of  school,  shall  have  the  cultural  training  necessary 
to  make  him  an  efficient  American  citizen,  and  the 
practical  training  that  will  enable  him  to  achieve 
such  a  vocation  and  to  be  given  such  ;a  start  in  life  as 
his  capacity  will  permit ;  and  that  if  defective,  he 
shall  be  placed  where  he  will  endanger  the  welfare 
neither  of  himself  nor  of  society  at  large.  Teaching 
must  be  individualized ;  the  child  must  be  studied  no 
less  carefully  than  the  curriculum ;  and  methods  must 
be  as  much  specialized  and  as  solidly  based  on  anat- 
omy, physiology,  and  psychology  as  medicine  is 
to-day.  There  is  a  sequence  in  the  order  in  which  the 
senses  develop,  and  in  all  sense  training  we  should 
follow  that  sequence.  Every  teacher  should  under- 
stand the  natural  way  in  which  children  grow.  Much 
of  our  present  teaching  retards  rather  than  aids  this 
development.  The  best  of  it  is  often  bungling  and 
ineffective.  The  understanding  of  these  developmental 
processes  is  especially  imperative  in  the  handling  of 
backward  children,  a  large  percentage  of  whom  could 
be  brought  up  to  the  normal  by  scientific  training.  The 
subnormal  child  and  the  backward  child  are  to-day 
two  of  the  greatest  problems  of  our  educational  sys- 
tem. Neither  of  these  classes  is  being  properly  cared 
for,  and  both  are  continually  aggravating  our  problems 
of  crime,  poverty,  and  mental  defectiveness. 

Mental  Tests  for  School  Children.  -  -  The  use  of 
mental  tests  has  given  us  a  more  accurate  estimate 
of  the  number  of  mental  defectives  in  our  public  schools. 
It  has  been  found  that  thirty- three  per  cent  of  all  our 
public  school  children  in  the  first  five  grades  are  two 
and  a  half  years  retarded ;  and  that  two  per  cent 


io6  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

of  these  are  mentally  defective  or  below  the  normal 
in  mental  capacity. 

Retardation,  or  backwardness,  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  the  child  has  either  physical  or  mental 
disease,  defect,  or  lack.  A  retarded  child  is  one  who  is 
not  up  to  the  work  of  other  children  of  the  same  age. 
If  the  causes  of  his  retardation  can  be  removed,  it  will 
be  only  temporary.  His  backwardness  may  be  due  to 
illness,  to  bad  home  conditions,  to  malnutrition,  to  a 
poor  school  curriculum,  to  poor  teaching,  to  a  bad 
neighborhood.  He  may  have  been  held  back  in  his 
physical  and  mental  development  by  lack  of  suffi- 
cient or  proper  food,  by  adenoids,  by  need  of  glasses, 
by  enlarged  tonsils,  by  an  unhappy  home,  or  by  other 
conditions  over  which  the  teacher  has  no  direct  con- 
trol, yet  which  she  should  try  to  remedy  by  bringing 
to  bear  upon  the  case  all  her  ingenuity  and  all  the 
power  vested  in  the  school  system. 

There  are  cases  in  which  the  cause  of  retardation  can 
be  removed,  and  other  cases  in  which  the  child  has  an 
ineradicable  or  incurable  defect.  When,  although  he 
has  attended  school  regularly  under  favorable  condi- 
tions, and  although  thorough  examination  by  a  com- 
petent physician  reveals  no  serious  physical  defect, 
he  nevertheless  remains  three  years  or  more  behind 
his  grade,  the  teacher  may  be  fairly  sure  that  he  is 
mentally  defective.  It  must,  however,  be  constantly 
remembered  that  a  child  may  be  backward  in  one 
way,  yet  very  bright  in  others,  and  that  school  back- 
wardness alone  does  not  prove  defectiveness.  It  does 
so  only  when  it  is  accompanied  by  other  unmistakable 
signs. 


SOCIALLY    DEFECTIVE    INDIVIDUALS  107 

From  the  pedagogical  point  of  view,  there  are  three 
classes  of  children  :  the  normal,  the  subnormal,  and  the 
abnormal.  A  normal  child,  so  far  as  the  school  is  con- 
cerned, is  one  who  conforms  to  the  standard  set  by  the 
majority  of  children  of  the  same  age.  This  implies 
an  all-round  development,  physical,  mental,  and 
moral.  A  subnormal  child  is  one  who  falls  below  this 
standard.  The  term  implies  some  degree  of  arrest  of 
development,  or  an  incapacity  to  develop.  The  term 
abnormal  is  used  to  designate  departure  from  the 
normal,  whether  above  or  below,  and  includes  gen- 
iuses as  well  as  idiots.  Our  school  system  is  at  pres- 
ent attuned  to  the  mediocre  child,  and  the  curriculum 
makes  little  provision  for  the  subnormal  types,  for  the 
abnormal,  or  for  those  who  measure  somewhat  above 
the  average,  though  not  sufficiently  so  to  be  classed 
as  geniuses. 

The  mental  tests  referred  to  are  sets  of  questions 
and  performances  prepared  by  psychologists  which 
are  intended  to  reveal  whether  or  not  the  person 
tested  is  normal ;  or  if  subnormal,  to  what  grade  of 
subnormality  he  belongs.  One  of  the  most  important 
tests  was  originally  devised  by  Alfred  Binet,  a  French 
psychologist,  and  is  called  the  Binet-Simon  Measuring 
Scale  for  Intelligence.  It  was  designed  for  use 
with  the  school  children  of  Paris.  The  first  series  of 
the  test  was  given  to  the  public  in  1905.  The  second 
series,  a  revision  by  Binet  and  Simon,  appeared 
in  1908. 

The  Binet  tests  endeavor  to  measure  native  ability 
or  capacity.  They  gauge  degrees  of  intelligence.  By 
this  means,  children  can  be  classified  according  to  their 


io8  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

mental  age,  and  special  attention  given  those  who 
are  retarded  and  troublesome  even  when  correctly 
classified. 

.In  1911,  Dr.  Henry  Herbert  Goddard  of  Vineland, 
New  Jersey,  made  a  few  changes  in  this  test,  making 
it  more  adaptable  to  American  children.  A  further 
revision  was  published  in  1917  by  Professor  Lewis  M. 
Terman  of  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University.  It 
is  known  as  the  Stanford  Revision  and  Extension  of 
the  Binet-Simon  Intelligence  Scale.1 

Nearly  one  hundred  cities  in  the  United  States  are 
now  using  the  Binet-Simon  method  to  detect  men- 
tally subnormal  children  in  the  schools.  It  is  used 
also  in  most  of  the  institutions  for  the  feeble-minded 
and  the  delinquent,  and  in  our  juvenile  courts.  It  is  a 
valuable  device  when  thus  used  by  experts,  but  only 
those  who  are  thoroughly  trained  in  such  work  should 
be  permitted  to  decide  on  a  child's  mentality  by  a 
Binet-Simon  test.  Both  special  training  and  ex- 
perience under  the  direction  of  an  expert  are  neces- 
sary to  qualify  one  to  assume  the  responsibility  of  pro- 
nouncing a  child  subnormal  and  confining  it  to  in- 
stitutional life,  or  even  of  subjecting  it  to  special  classi- 
fication in  the  schools. 

In  1907,  Professor  S.  A.  Courtis  of  Detroit,  Michi- 
gan, began  experimenting  with  a  set  of  tests  that  would 
measure  mental  attainment  or  school  progress  in  the 

1  This  book  and  the  material  for  giving  the  test  can  be  secured  from 
the  Houghton  Mifflin  Company  at  reasonable  rates.  Results  will  be 
likely,  however,  to  be  misleading  unless  the  person  giving  the  test  has 
a  wide  background  of  experience  from  which  to  draw  comparisons 
and  conclusions. 


SOCIALLY    DEFECTIVE    INDIVIDUALS  109 

different  studies  of  the  school  curriculum.  The  first 
of  these  tests  was  published  in  1910.  They  measure 
the  products  of  school  training  and  are  designed  for 
normal  children.  At  the  present  time,  Professor 
Courtis  has  four  sets  of  tests :  two  for  progress  made 
in  arithmetic,  one  for  reading,  one  for  writing.  These 
tests  are  not  lesson  sheets  or  examinations.  They  are 
tools  for  the  investigation  of  the  school  progress  made 
by  pupils  in  the  different  subjects,  and  are  intended  to 
serve  four  purposes :  finding  our  actual  conditions 
as  to  school  progress  in  educational  systems,  in  single 
schools,  in  separate  classes,  and  in  individuals ;  dis- 
covering the  natural  laws  of  mental  development 
operative  in  school  work ;  making  possible  measuring 
experiments  that  will  help  to  settle  all  questions  of 
educational  procedure  ;  securing  the  information  needed 
for  setting  standards  for  the  guidance  of  teachers  and 
super  in  tenden  ts . 1 

The  rural  school  teacher  should  be  familiar  with  the 
fact  that  such  tests  can  be  made  and  with  the  principles 
that  underlie  them,  but  should  not  herself  try  to  make 
tests.  She  may  be  able,  however,  to  have  such  tests 
made  in  her  school  by  an  expert  in  the  course  of  a  sur- 
vey or  as  a  special  experiment.  But  no  such  step 
could  be  taken  without  the  full  understanding  and  the 
support  of  a  responsible  group  of  the  citizens  of  the 
district. 

What  the  Rural  Teacher  Can  Do  to  Help  Defective 
Children.  —  First  of  all,  the  teacher  must  help  to  teach 
the  public  that  the  regular  school  is  not  the  place  for 

1  Copies  of  these  tests  may  be  obtained  from  Dean  S.  A.  Courtis, 
Detroit  Teachers'  College,  Detroit,  Michigan. 


no  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

defective  children.  The  subnormal  do  not  get  the 
training  they  need,  and  often  develop  either  into  a 
menace  or  a  burden  to  society.  These  children  need 
specially  designed  institutions  in  which  they  will  be 
shielded  from  abuse  and  curiosity.  Secondly,  the 
teacher  should  do  all  in  her  power  to  help  establish  a 
county  psychiatric  clinic  at  some  convenient  center, 
where  all  backward  children  could  be  examined  free 
of  charge  by  persons  who  are  thoroughly  trained  for 
this  work ;  or  she  should  endeavor  to  bring  about  the 
employing  of  a  county  school  nurse  who  could  give 
the  children  of  each  school  an  examination  for 
physical  and  other  defects  at  specified  intervals. 
There  are  scores  of  defective  children  throughout 
our  rural  districts  who  are  receiving  neither  medi- 
cal aid  nor  institutional  training.  The  rural  teachers 
can  seek  out  these  unfortunate  ones  and  help  to 
get  them  into  schools  and  institutions.  It  is  in- 
finitely better  for  the  community  and  for  the  defec- 
tives themselves  to  have  them  segregated  in  institu- 
tions where  they  are  protected  by  an  environment 
suited  to  their  needs  and  capacity.  No  sentimental 
reasons  should  stand  in  the  way  of  this  segregation, 
and  the  rural  teacher  must  learn  to  combat  with 
solid  reasons  that  feeling  against  "  putting  a  loved 
one  away  "  which  is  most  persistent  in  conservative 
country  districts.  The  relatives  of  the  defective  are 
entitled,  however,  to  proof  that  the  unfortunate  mem- 
ber of  their  family  will  receive  kind  and  understand- 
ing care  in  the  institution,  and  every  effort  should  be 
made  to  expose  the  conditions  in  any  institution  which 
fails  to  meet  properly  its  responsibility.  The  rural 


SOCIALLY    DEFECTIVE    INDIVIDUALS  in 

teacher  should  also  do  all  within  her  power  to  im- 
prove the  home  conditions  of  her  pupils.  Sanitary 
conveniences,  heating,  ventilation,  clothing,  the  se- 
lection and  proper  preparation  of  foods,  personal  hy- 
giene, the  care  of  children,  and  first  aid  are  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  rural  people.  This  effort  at 
improving  the  home  must  be  tactfully  made  and 
cannot  be  pressed  unduly,  but  the  rural  teacher  is, 
above  all  else,  a  social  betterment  worker  and  should 
ally  herself  with  every  social  agency  that  is  trying  to 
improve  living  conditions  and  should  bring  her  con- 
stituents into  touch  with  these  forward  movements. 
The  rural  district  is  at  present  in  need  of  seeding 
rather  than  of  harvesting  —  seeding  with  ideas  which 
will  eliminate  the  causes  which  lead  to  much  human 
waste,  social  defectiveness,  misery,  and  crime. 


TERMS  WITH  WHICH  EVERY  RURAL  TEACHER  SHOULD  BE  FAMILIAR 

Norm,  standard,  type,  average,  atavistic,  normal,  sub- 
normal, abnormal,  cretin,  ament,  pervert,  brachycephalic, 
microcephalic,  dolicocephalic,  hydrocephalic,  natal,  prenatal, 
postnatal,  clinic,  laboratory,  diagnosis,  prognosis,  alienist,  psy- 
chiatrist, psychiatric,  insanity,  lunatic,  idiot,  imbecile,  moron, 
deviate,  remedial,  ameliorative,  amentia,  stigmata,  congenital, 
mongoloid  or  mongolian,  eptoloid,  epileptic,  psychosis,  adenoids, 
neurosis,  neurotic,  neurasthenic,  paralysis,  Jukes,  Kallikaks, 
Nams,  Ishmaels. 

TESTS  WHICH  THE  RURAL  TEACHER  CAN  MAKE 

There  are  simple  tests  which  can  be  made  by  rural  teachers 
untrained  in  more  scientific  methods  and  removed  from  clinical 
centers  where  expert  advice  can  be  secured,  yet  which  will  help 


112  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

her  roughly  to  gauge  her  students'  mental  power  and  her  own 
pedagogic  success.  The  following  are  easy  to  give,  and  will  often 
be  found  helpful  in  deciding  upon  simple  cases : 

A.  Reading. 

1.  If  a  child  picks  up  a  book  and  holds  it  naturally;  if  he  does 
not  mutter,  mumble,  or  stammer ;   and  if  he  reads  articulately  and 
fluently  with  fair  intonation  and  emphasis,  he  scores  well.     Use 
simple  reading  matter  within  the  comprehension  of  other  children 
of  his  age. 

2.  Can  he  recall  what  he  has  read  ?  Does  he  understand  it  ? 

B.  Arithmetic. 

Can  he  reason?  Use  simple  and  practical  problems  concerning 
things  with  which  he  is  familiar. 

C.  Dictation. 

Use  simple  sentences  easily  comprehended  by  him. 

These  tests  are  merely  pedagogical  and  reveal  only  the  child's 
ability  to  be  educated  along  certain  academic  lines,  yet  none 
the  less  they  may  assist  the  teacher  to  sift  out  the  pupils  in  need 
of  special  separate  attention. 

QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 

The  first  seventeen  questions  and  the  references  supplied  will 
provide  material  for  one  meeting.  The  remaining  questions  and 
references  will  provide  material  for  a  second  lesson  on  this  subject. 

1.  What  is  a  defective  individual? 

2.  Name  different  kinds  or  classes  of  defectives.     Describe 
each  type. 

3.  Distinguish  between  poverty  and  pauperism.    What  are 
the  general  causes  of  poverty? 

4.  Distinguish  between  insanity  and  feeble-mindedness. 

5.  Distinguish  between  a  pauper  and  a  dependent. 

6.  Distinguish  between  an  idiot,  an  imbecile,  and  a  moron. 

7.  What  is  meant  by  degeneracy?     Name  some  classes  of 
degenerates. 

8.  What  is  meant  by  a  "juvenile  delinquent" ? 

9.  Where  and  when  was  the  first  juvenile  court  established 


SOCIALLY    DEFECTIVE    INDIVIDUALS  113 

in  the  United  States?     Name  some  of  the  leaders  in  this  move- 
ment. 

10.  What  are  the  social  causes  of  def ectiveness  ?     Name  the 
four  which  you  think  are  the  most  important. 

11.  Define  eugenics.     What  is  the  purpose  of  eugenic  marriage 
laws  ?     What  is  a  hygienic  marriage  law  ? 

12.  About  how  much  def  ectiveness  is  said  to  be  due  to  heredity  ? 
To  environment  ? 

13.  How  many  generations  do  you  think  it  will  be  necessary  to 
educate  along  the  line  of  right  living  before  the  number  of  de- 
fectives will  be  lessened  by  one  half  ? 

14.  In  how  many  ways  do  social  defectives  cause  expense  to 
society  ? 

15.  Name  all  the  means  at  our  command  at  present  for  the 
decreasing  of  social  def  ectiveness. 

1 6.  What  can  each  of  us,  as  individuals,  do  to  help  in  reducing 
this  tremendous  burden  to  society  ? 

17.  Have  the  schools  been  doing  their  duty  in  this  matter  of 
preventing  and  reducing  defectiveness  ?     If  not,  why  ? 

1 8.  Why  should  vocational  education  and  vocational  guidance 
be  extended  as  rapidly  as  possible  ?     What  are  some  of  the  dangers 
to  be  avoided  in  these  lines  of  educational  work  ? 

19.  What  is  meant  by  mental  retardation?     Give  some  causes 
of  retardation. 

20.  How  would  you  proceed  to  decide  whether  or  not  a  child 
was  mentally  defective  ? 

21.  Distinguish  between  temporary  retardation  and  permanent 
retardation. 

22.  Give  some  of  the  stigmata  of  the  mental  defectiveness. 
Could  you  diagnose  a  case  of  idiocy  ?     Of  imbecility  ? 

23.  Discuss  the  different  tests  which  have  been  designed  for  the 
measuring  of  intelligence. 

24.  Name  some  of  the  uses  being  made  of  these  tests. 

25.  Do  you  think  rural  teachers  should  be  able  to  administer 
first  aid?    Are  the  schools  teaching  practical  hygiene? 

26.  What  can  a  rural  teacher  do  to  help  in  this  great  movement 
to  relieve  society  of  the  presence  and  burden  of  social  defectiveness  ? 


H4  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

27.  What  are  the  problems  of  your  community  along  these  lines 
of  defectiveness ?     Can  you  suggest  feasible  remedies?     What  can 
you  do  to  help  in  this  matter?     Is  the  community  awake  to  its 
duty? 

28.  Why  do  higher  standards  of  living  lessen -the  problems  of 
social  wreckage  ? 

REFERENCES 

ARTHUR,  GRACE.      "An  Application   of  Intelligence  Tests  to  the 

Problem  of  School  Retardation."     School  and  Society,  vol.  10, 

pp.  614-620;  Nov.  22.  1919. 

BRECKENRIDGE,  SOPHONISBA  P.,  and  ABBOTT,  EDITH.     The  De- 
linquent Child  and  the  Home.     Survey  Associates,  Inc.,  New 

York,  1912. 
DEVINE,  EDWARD  T.     Misery  and  Its  Causes,  Chapters  I,  II,  III, 

IV.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1913. 
DUGDALE,  RICHARD  L.     The  Jukes,  Part  I.     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons, 

New  York,  1910. 
GEORGE,  WILLIAM  R.     The  Junior  Republic,  Its  History  and  Ideals. 

The  entire  work.     D.  Appleton  and    Company,  New  York, 

1909. 
GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.     Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapters  XI, 

XVII.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 
GODDARD,  HENRY.     The  Kallikak  Family.    The  entire  work.     The 

Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1912. 
GUYER,  MICHAEL  F.     Being  Well  Born,  Chapters  I,  II,  V,  VI,  VIII, 

IX,  X.     Bobbs-Merrill  Company,  Indianapolis,  1916. 
HART,  HASTINGS  HORNELL.     Juvenile  Court  Laws  in  the   United 

States.     Introduction.     Survey  Associates,   Inc.,  New  York, 

1910. 
HEALY,    WILLIAM.    Honesty.     The    entire    work.     Bobbs-Merrill 

Company,  Indianapolis,  1915. 

HENDERSON,  CHARLES  R.    An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Depend- 
ent,   Defective,    and    Delinquent    Classes,    Part  III.       D.   C. 

Heath  &  Co.,  Boston,  1901. 
HOLLANDER,  JACOB  H.    The  Abolition  of  Poverty.     The  entire  work. 

Hough  ton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  1914. 


SOCIALLY    DEFECTIVE    INDIVIDUALS  115 

HOLMES,  ARTHUR.     Backward  Children.     The  entire  work.     Bobbs- 

Merrill  Company,  Indianapolis,  1915. 
HUNTER,  ROBERT.     Poverty,     Chapters    I,    II,  III.     The    Mac- 

millan  Company,  New  York,  1912. 
LESCOHIER,  BOND.     The  Labor  Market,  Chapters  XIII,  XIV.     The 

Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1919. 
MOSBY,  THOMAS  S.     Causes  and  Cures  of  Crimes,  Chapters  II,  V. 

C.  V.  Mosby  Company,  St.  Louis,  1913. 
OSBORNE,  THOMAS  MOTT.     Society  and  Prisons.     The  entire  work. 

Yale  University  Press,  New  Haven,  1916. 
PARMELEE,  MAURICE  F.     Poverty  and  Social  Progress,  Chapters  V, 

XX,  XXX.     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 
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1912. 
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The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 
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XI.     D.  Appleton  and  Company,  1917. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL 

Needed :    An   Adequate   Rural   School   System.  - 

The  greatest  need  of  the  rural  community  of  to-day 
is  a  school  system  that  is  especially  designed  to  pro- 
vide for  rural  needs.  A  system  borrowed  from  a 
city,  no  matter  how  well  it  has  worked  there,  is  not 
certain  to  serve  the  needs  of  a  country  district.  The 
country  districts,  unfortunately,  have  not  been  as 
quick  as  the  cities  to  realize  the  importance  of  adapt- 
ing their  educational  methods  to  their  own  particular 
needs.  Educators  are  beginning  to  understand  that 
the  cities  and  the  rural  regions  are  essentially  differ- 
ent and  that  each  must  develop  its  own  educational 
system. 

There  are  at  least  four  reforms  which  are  needed  to 
adapt  our  rural  schools  to  the  needs  of  our  rural  people  : 

(1)  teachers,    supervisors     and    county    superintend- 
ents   who     are    specially    trained    for     rural     work ; 

(2)  more    and    better    supervision    of    school    work ; 

(3)  courses    of  study  adapted   to  present  rural    con- 
ditions ;    (4)  properly  equipped  school  plants.     Some 
states  and  localities  have  attained  these  reforms,  at 
least  in  part,  but  the  major  portion  of  our  rural  school 
system  is  backward. 

The  vital  importance  of  an  efficient  system  of  rural 
schools  to  the  welfare  of  the  nation  justifies  a  demand 

116 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  117 

that  the  federal  government  take  definite  steps  to 
promote  and  insure  an  adequate  system  of  rural  edu- 
cation. Such  a  federal  policy  can  hardly  be  attained 
until  the  federal  Bureau  of  Education  is  taken  out  of 
the  Department  of  the  Interior  and  made  a  Depart- 
ment of  Education  with  a  secretary  in  the  Cabinet. 
That  the  educational  welfare  of  the  nation  should  be 
represented  by  a  subordinate  bureau  of  the  federal 
government  is  a  national  disgrace.  We  are  the  only 
important  nation  to-day  that  does  not  have  a  Secretary 
of  Education  of  Cabinet  rank.  There  must  be  a  federal 
department  of  education  in  the  United  States,  and  in 
it  a  Bureau  of  Rural  Education. 

Our  Rural  Schools  Are  Out-of-Date.  —  Sixty- two 
per  cent  of  the  children  of  America  are  educated  in 
rural  schools !  Read  that  sentence  over  again.  Keep 
it  in  mind  as  you  read  this  chapter. 

Over  one-half  the  children  of  our  nation  attend 
one-room  district  schools,  where  a  single  teacher  vainly 
endeavors  to  teach  several,  often  eight,  different 
grades.  In  some  states,  as  many  as  four-fifths  of  all 
the  children  are  in  the  one-room  school.  Over  half 
our  farmers  have  no  more  than  a  sixth  grade  educa- 
tion. In  parts  of  many  of  our  states,  seventy-five 
per  cent  of  the  rural  pupils  leave  school  before  they 
have  finished  the  sixth  grade.  Illiteracy  in  rural 
territory  is  twice  as  great  as  in  urban  territory. 

Nearly  forty-eight  per  cent  (47.7)  of  our  rural  schools 
have  an  enrollment  of  ten  pupils  or  less,  and  only  8.5 
per  cent  have  an  enrollment  of  twenty  or  more  pupils. 
Such  small  schools  lack  the  spirit  and  enthusiasm 
which  is  present  in  larger  schools,  and  a  one-teacher 


Ii8  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

rural  school  cannot  possibly,  especially  in  the  usual 
short  term,  give  the  school  work  needed  by  farm 
boys  and  girls  of  to-day.  Such  schools  cannot 
teach  agriculture  as  a  business,  or  the  art  of  home- 
making  and  manual  training ;  nor  can  they  carry  out 
the  project  work  so  essential  to  the  binding  together 
of  school  and  home. 

In  a  few  instances  in  a  half  dozen  states,  resource- 
ful, ingenious,  enthusiastic  teachers  have  succeeded 
in  improvising  a  little  apparatus  and  in  adding  to 
their  program  of  eight  grades  of  elementary  work 
some  simple  work  in  manual  training  and  in  domestic 
science.  But  these  successes  have  been  possible  very 
largely  because  of  the  hearty  response  of  unusually 
intelligent  communities. 

Here  and  there  one  finds  a  well-built,  neatly  painted, 
well-kept  rural  school,  sometimes  with  two  or  three 
rooms,  but  commonly  the  schoolhouse  is  a  little  one- 
room,  weather-beaten  building  by  a  lonely  roadside. 
A  little  to  the  rear  are  two  out-buildings,  often  wretch- 
edly cared  for.  The  interior  of  the  schoolhouse  is 
generally  unpainted  and  it  is  equipped  with  hard, 
straight  seats  and  uncomfortable  desks  that  make  it 
anything  but  inviting.  What  wonder  the  pupils  leave 
at  their  first  opportunity  ?  A  water  pail  with  a  tin  cup, 
a  "  volcano  "  stove,  and  a  raised  or  lowered  window 
generally  do  duty  for  drinking  fountain,  heating,  and 
ventilation.  There  are  none  of  the  societies,  glee 
clubs,  orchestras,  or  athletics  that  give  such  zest  to 
school  work  in  urban  centers  and  that  should  fill  a 
place  in  adolescent  life.  Occasionally  a  teacher  of  ex- 
ceptional personality  provides  some  small  substitute, 


THE   DISTRICT   SCHOOL  119 

but  frequently  school  life  in  the  country  means  nothing 
more  than  the  effort  to  master  the  work  of  the  first 
eight  grades  under  difficult  conditions,  softened  only 
by  noon-hour  play  on  the  school  playground. 

The  backwardness  of  the  rural  schools  has  been  due 
to  a  number  of  causes.  The  farmers  in  many  sections 
of  the  country  have  not  yet  realized  the  value  of  edu- 
cation to  a  farmer.  The  writer  has  personal  knowl- 
edge of  several  rural  schools  where  the  people  actually 
boast  of  having  from  three  to  six  teachers  in  a  term  of 
eight  months.  Taxpayers  who  pride  themselves  on 
their  shrewdness  in  matters  of  dollars  and  cents  fail 
to  see  the  important  fact  that  they  could  realize  twice 
as  much  on  every  dollar  expended  for  their  schools  if 
they  gave  the  teachers  active  and  hearty  support  in 
the  discipline  and  curriculum  of  the  school.  The 
rural  school  has  been  held  back  by  the  failure  of  the 
farming  population  to  realize  the  cash  value  of  educa- 
tion to  their  business,  as  well  as  its  value  to  citizenship. 

The  comparative  poverty  of  the  country  school 
district,  the  decentralization  of  our  school  system, 
and  the  lack  of  central  supervision  and  control  have 
been  other  important  impediments  to  the  progress 
of  the  rural  school. 

A  country  school,  like  a  city  school,  must  draw  its 
pupils  from  homes  near  to  the  school,  so  that  the 
child  can  get  to  school  and  home  again  without 
overfatigue.  The  total  number  of  families  within 
a  child's  walking  distance  from  a  country  school  is 
necessarily  small,  under  American  agricultural  condi- 
tions. Ordinarily,  none  of  the  families  are  well-to-do. 
The  total  amount  of  property  taxable  for  the  sup- 


120  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

port  of  a  given  school  is  often  too  small  to  support  a 
good  school  in  a  typical  rural  school  district.  Even 
when  the  aids  to  rural  schools  distributed  by  some 
states  are  taken  into  account,  the  funds  available 
are  often  too  small  to  support  a  school  of  the  quality 
needed  by  every  American  child. 

Frequently,  the  district  does  not  provide  for  its 
schools  as  well  as  it  could  afford  to  do,  and  the  lack 
of  state-wide  standards  for  rural  schools  and  of  state 
supervision  has  permitted  the  locality  to  provide 
only  such  education  as  it  chose. 

Even  when  a  state  realizes  the  need  for  good  rural 
schools,  and  establishes  a  well -organized  course  of 
study  for  rural  schools,  as  New  York  State  has  done, 
the  one-room  school  presents  almost  insuperable  obsta- 
cles to  really  efficient  educational  work.  Supervision 
by  the  state  and  county  of  the  teacher's  work  is  generally 
inadequate  ;  the  teacher  is  not  able  to  specialize  ;  and  the 
effort  to  teach  all  the  subjects  in  all  the  grades  dissipates 
her  time  and  energy  without  commensurate  results. 

This  situation  is  aggravated  by  the  frequent  change 
of  teachers.  Relatively  few  districts  hold  their  teachers 
more  than  one,  two,  or  three  years.  Many  districts 
seldom  hold  a  teacher  an  entire  year.  Others  seldom 
hold  a  teacher  an  entire  term.  The  rural  school,  be- 
cause of  the  low  wages,  hard  work,  and  lack  of  sup- 
port of  the  teacher  by  the  community,  which 
characterize  a  majority  of  them,  are  very  commonly 
taught  by  young  girls  who  are  waiting  to  get 
married,  or  who  are  using  the  rural  school  as  a 
stepping  stone  to  a  better  education  and  to  a  town  or 
city  school. 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  121 

The  situation  is  much  better  in  those  states,  counties, 
and  townships  in  which  the  one-room  schools  have 
been  discarded  and  the  consolidated  school  has  been 
provided  for  the  children  from  a  number  of  school  dis- 
tricts. The  consolidated  school  permits  the  grading 
of  the  pupils  in  separate  rooms  and  under  teachers 
who  are  specialists  in  the  teaching  of  one  or  two  grades  ; 
makes  possible  the  development  of  a  real  school  spirit ; 
and  provides  a  sufficient  financial  support  to  enable 
the  school  to  get  manual  training  and  domestic  science 
equipment,  and  to  provide  courses  of  a  semivocational 
character.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  such 
schools  have  not  yet  become  typical  representatives 
of  American  rural  education.  The  one-room,  one- 
teacher,  inefficient  district  school  continues  to  be  our 
dominant  type  of  rural  school. 

How  different  the  situation  in  city  schools  !  While 
far  from  ideal  in  many  cases,  they  are  far  in  advance 
of  the  rural  schools.  Though  the  older  school 
buildings  are  often  not  of  the  best  type,  most  of  the 
newer  buildings  are  equipped  with  up-to-date  heat- 
ing, lighting,  and  ventilating  systems.  Some  south- 
ern cities  have  gone  so  far  as  to  install  cold-air  sys- 
tems in  the  school  buildings  so  that  the  pupils  may  be 
able  to  study  better  during  the  hot  months.  Pro- 
gressive cities,  north  and  south,  have  well-equipped 
manual  training  and  domestic  science  rooms,  and 
often  school  libraries,  gymnasiums,  lunch  rooms,  and 
other  conveniences. 

More  and  more  attention  is  being  paid  to  the  child's 
physical  welfare.  Physical  examinations  by  school 
physicians,  and  supervision  of  the  diet  and  clothing  of 


122  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

the  child  by  school  nurses  are  becoming  common.  In 
some  cities  if  the  school  nurse  or  the  school's  home 
visitor  finds  that  a  family  is  not  financially  able  to 
provide  what  is  needed  by  a  child,  the  case  is  called 
to  the  attention  of  philanthropic  individuals  or 
that  of  organizations  which  see  that  the  need  is 
taken  care  of.  Warm  lunches  are  frequently  served 
in  the  school  buildings  at  little  or  no  cost,  as  conditions 
necessitate. 

The  city  high  schools  have  scientific  laboratories, 
libraries,  a  large  assembly  room  or  hall,  and  other  special 
facilities.  College  preparatory,  commercial,  technical, 
manual  training,  and  domestic  science  courses  are 
frequently  offered.  In  the  most  advanced  school 
systems,  vocational  guidance  helps  the  child  to  choose 
the  course  best  suited  to  his  capacities  and  situation. 
Beside  all  these  advantages,  there  are  athletic  associa- 
tions, glee  clubs,  orchestras,  literary  societies,  debating 
clubs,  and  various  social  clubs,  all  of  which  add  to  the 
attractiveness  of  school  life.  Public  libraries,  art 
museums,  zoological  gardens,  botanical  gardens,  thea- 
ters, and  supervised  playgrounds  supplement  the 
school  plant  in  many  of  the  larger  cities. 

In  a  rapidly  increasing  number  of  states,  continua- 
tion schools,  at  which  attendance  is  compulsory  for 
about  eight  hours  a  week,  are  provided  for  those 
boys  and  girls  who  have  left  the  day  schools  and 
entered  industrial  life.  The  instruction  they  receive 
is  closely  related  to  their  vocation  and  supplements 
and  interprets  their  industrial  experience. 

Backward,  subnormal,  crippled,  and  tubercular  chil- 
dren are,  in  a  number  of  cities,  separated  from  the  nor- 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  123 

mal  children  and  given  special  training  by  teachers  who 
have  specialized  in  methods  of  training  such  children. 

The  efficiency  of  the  city  school  system  is  being 
steadily  improved  under  the  administration  and  super- 
vision of  educational  experts  of  large  caliber.  A 
corps  of  specialists,  supervisors,  heads  of  depart- 
ments, and  special  officials  look  after  the  various 
phases  of  the  school  work.  Moderate-sized  cities, 
of  course,  provide  less  of  this  specialized  supervi- 
sion than  the  larger  cities,  but  it  is  present  in  all 
city  school  systems  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  Never 
before  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  education 
been  so  freely  offered  to  the  great  mass  of  the  common 
people  as  in  certain  of  our  largest  cities  at  the  present 
time. 

The  country  is  not  the  city.  It  has  not  the  city's 
needs ;  nor  has  it  the  city's  resources.  Urban  school 
systems  cannot  be  reproduced  in  toto  in  rural  dis- 
tricts, but  the  interest  in  education  which  is  so 
characteristic  of  American  cities  can  be  fostered  in 
the  country.  The  development  of  the  best  schools 
possible  can  become  an  objective  in  rural  life  as  it  has 
been  in  urban  life.  Through  consolidation  of  district 
schools  into  centralized  grade  schools  equipped  for 
up-to-date  educational  work,  teaching  standardized 
courses  prepared  for  rural  schools,  with  teachers 
trained  especially  for  rural  work  and  receiving  salaries 
such  as  will  enable  them  to  preserve  their  self-respect, 
and  with  adequate  supervision  by  the  state  and  the 
county,  a  rural  school  system  can  be  developed  which 
will  meet  the  needs  of  rural  life  in  America  as  well  as 
the  city  schools  meet  the  needs  of  urban  life. 


124  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

Teachers  Specially  Trained  for  Rural  Work  Are 
Badly  Needed.  —  Statistics  recently  compiled  by  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Education  show  that  32.3 
per  cent  of  the  rural  teachers  in  the  United  States 
have  no  professional  training  of  any  nature.  Four 
per  cent  have  not  completed  the  eighth  grade  of  the 
elementary  school,  and  32  per  cent  have  not  com- 
pleted a  high  school  course.  Only  3.2  per  cent  have 
received  normal  school  diplomas. 

The  teachers  in  our  rural  schools  are  inadequately 
prepared  for  their  work.  They  are  also  overburdened. 
Sixty-six  per  cent  (66.2)  of  them  are  teaching  eight 
grades  or  more  and  conducting  twenty- five  to  thirty- 
five  recitations  daily.  These  figures  very  largely  ex- 
plain why  we  have  a  backward  rural  school  system, 
and  why  we  have  relatively  few  progressive  rural 
leaders.  Another  impediment  of  the  rural  school  is 
the  transient  teacher  —  the  young  men  or  women 
who  teach  in  rural  schools  to  earn  enough  to  enable 
them  to  complete  their  college  courses  or  their  training 
for  some  profession.  These  young  people  are  likely  to 
be  immature  both  in  mind  and  in  character  and  fre- 
quently care  nothing  about  the  pedagogic  art.  They 
are  oftentimes  a  positive  detriment  to  the  community 
life  and  to  the  cause  of  education  as  well. 

The  rural  population  is  now  awakening  to  the  need  for 
trained  and  thoroughly  competent  teachers,  and  to  the 
fact  that  the  rural  school  at  present  does  not  fulfill 
the  demands  for  rural  education.  To  be  a  successful 
farmer  to-day  a  man  must,  as  one  farmer  expressed  it, 
"  know  about  soils,  soil  drainage,  soil  chemistry,  soil 
physics,  the  relation  of  crops  to  soil  and  climate,  the 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  125 

rotation  of  crops,  fertilization,  ...  be  a  good  buyer 
and  seller,  a  good  manager,  and  must  know  something 
about  bookkeeping."  A  man  cannot  learn  all  these 
things,  nor  acquire  the  vision  to  see  his  need  of  them, 
without  an  adequate  elementary  education. 

Professional  requirements  for  teachers  must  be  raised, 
and  salaries  that  will  attract  superior  ability  must  be 
paid.  Teachers  should  be  the  best  educated  and 
best  paid  of  all  our  public  workers.  There  are  several 
states  in  which  the  average  annual  salaries  of  the 
rural  schools  is  less  than  the  annual  cost  of  supporting 
a  pauper  in  the  county  almshouse.  Our  higher  in- 
stitutions of  learning  must  provide  courses  that  will 
adequately  prepare  rural  teachers  not  only  to  teach 
rural  grade  and  high  school  classes,  but  to  be  leaders 
in  all  phases  of  rural  life.  For  instance,  the  country 
teacher  should  have  a  fair  knowledge  of  social  science  in 
order  to  make  the  school  a  source  of  strength  to  the 
community,  to  retain  the  best  of  each  generation  as 
permanent  country  residents,  and  to  mold  rural  minds 
to  creative  social  thought. 

Proper  Supervision.  —  Every  state  should  organize 
a  closely  knit,  strongly  centralized  school  system. 
The  state  commissioner  of  education  should  have  large 
powers  and  be  able  to  carry  out  his  policies  and  make 
his  directions  effective,  unhampered  by  any  political  in- 
fluence. He  should  be  assisted  by  specialists  chosen 
solely  for  their  ability  as  educators.  Favoritism 
and  politics  have  no  place  in  any  part  of  our  school 
system. 

The  administration  of  rural  schools  must  be  made  a 
learned  profession,  and  specialists  in  the  state  edu- 


126  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

cational  department  must  lead  in  the  constructive 
improvement  of  rural  school  standards. 

There  is,  fortunately,  a  growing  feeling  that  county 
superintendents  of  schools  should  be  trained  men  and 
women  with  educational  experience  and  acquaintance 
with  rural  conditions ;  that  they  should  be  supported 
by  a  competent  corps  of  supervisors ;  and  that  they 
should  have  clerical  assistance  for  their  office  work. 
A  county  superintendent  of  schools  in  the  United 
States  combines  within  himself  the  characters  of  a  min- 
ister of  public  instruction,  an  inspector  of  schools,  a 
licenser  of  teachers,  and  a  professor  of  pedagogy.  He 
occupies  a  position  wholly  .unlike  that  of  any  scholastic 
officer  found  in  any  European  country.  An  office 
comprising  these  varied  and  extensive  duties  clearly 
requires  both  broad  and  specialized  training. 

The  county  superintendent  of  schools  should  be 
more  than  a  mere  adviser  of  local  school  boards  or 
teachers.  He  should  have  important  regulative  and 
administrative  powers.  He  should  have  a  voice  in 
the  engaging  of  teachers  and  the  fixing  of  salaries ; 
at  least  to  the  extent  of  fixing  minimum  standards. 
He  should  participate  in  the  control  of  school  funds 
within  his  county  and  should  be  consulted  as  to  the 
amount  of  school  tax  to  be  levied.  He  should  have 
some  advisory  control  over  school  books  and  courses  of 
study  ;  arid  should  have  power  to  enforce  school  attend- 
ance laws,  if  local  officials  are  derelict.  He  should  also 
be  a  member  of,  or  a  consulting  adviser  to,  any  adminis- 
trative board  in  control  of  the  township  or  the  county 
schools. 

In  1911,  thirty- four  states  having  county  superintend- 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  127 

en ts  reported  that  these  superintendents  were  elected 
by  popular  vote  and  had  no  assistants.  In  the  majority 
of  these  states,  the  superintendents  had  no  voice  in  the 
choice  of  textbooks  or  of  teachers,  nor  in  the  levying 
of  taxes.  In  sharp  contrast  to  this  condition,  we 
find  that  city  superintendents  are  not  elected  by 
popular  vote,  but  are  chosen  on  account  of  their  ex- 
perience and  fitness  to  do  the  work.  Boards  of  edu- 
cation are  leaving  to  the  superintendents  practically 
the  entire  direction  of  school  affairs.  The  rural  schools, 
however,  are  still  very  much  decentralized,  and  the 
local  officeholder  often  insists  upon  attempting  to 
administer  matters  about  which  he  knows  little  or 
nothing.  Domination  of  the  rural  schools  by  the 
county  superintendent  is  not  altogether  desirable ; 
but  a  centralized  policy  is  very  necessary.  This  will 
perhaps  be  best  attained  by  a  small  county  board, 
with  the  superintendent  as  a  member,  which  will  have 
control  and  supervision  of  textbooks,  courses  of  study, 
and  school  standards. 

Improved  supervision  is  essential  to  the  improve- 
ment of  the  individual  schools.  Throughout  the 
United  States,  the  county  is  yet,  with  a  few  exceptions,1 
the  unit  of  rural  school  administration.  In  many 
counties  there  are  from  one  hundred  to  six  hundred 
schools.  The  best  superintendent  can  hardly  give 
effective  supervision  to  so  many  schools  scattered 
over  so  large  an  area.  Consequently,  many  rural 
districts  have  had  almost  no  supervision.  There  has 
been  an  awakening  to  this  fact,  and,  since  1911, 
a  number  of  states  have  provided  supervisors  or 
1  New  England,  New  York,  Virginia,  and  Nevada. 


128  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

assistants  to  aid  the  superintendent  in  his  extensive 
duties.  Several  states  have  divided  the  counties 
into  districts  averaging  about  one-fourth  of  a  county. 
A  supervisor  of  one  of  these  districts  has  from  twenty 
to  sixty  teachers  under  his  direction  and  has  some 
chance  to  do  good  work.  This  is  a  great  forward  step 
in  rural  education. 

Wherever  we  find  the  one-room  district  school  pre- 
dominant, there  should  be  a  supervisor  for  each  town- 
ship ;  but  where  the  consolidated  school  prevails,  the 
county  may  not  be  too  large  an  area  for  good  super- 
vision, especially  if  the  supervision  is  departmental  in 
its  character. 

Teachers'  Tenure  of  Office  and  Salaries.  —  Se- 
cure tenure  of  office,  as  a  means  of  keeping  experienced 
and  efficient  teachers  and  of  preventing  a  constant 
changing  of  the  teaching  body,  is  now  well  established 
in  many  cities.  Some  states  have  recently  begun  to 
extend  this  condition  to  the  rural  districts.  The 
average  length  of  time  rural  teachers  in  the  United 
States  remain  in  one  school  is  13.8  months.  In  a 
study  of  the  tenure  of  office  of  the  rural  teachers  of 
North  Carolina,  made  in  1911,  it  was  found  that  63 
per  cent  were  teaching  their  first  year  in  their  present 
positions ;  23  per  cent  their  second  year ;  8  per  cent 
their  third  year.  Only  6  per  cent  were  teaching 
more  than  their  third  year  in  the  position  they  then 
occupied.  The  tenure  of  office  of  both  teachers  and 
county  superintendents  has  been  much  too  short  for 
effective  service.  At  least  one  year  of  work  in  a 
district  is  necessary  to  learn  its  peculiar  social  and 
economic  features,  yet  the  majority  of  teachers  seek  a 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  129 

new  field  at  the  end  of  each  school  year.  Perhaps 
both  communities  and  teachers  are  to  blame  for  this 
deplorable  condition. 

Efficient  and  desirable  teachers  should  be  given 
permanent  tenure  of  office  and  an  annual  increase  in 
salary  until  a  just  maximum  is  reached.  Such  a 
practice  would  keep  more  capable  teachers  in  the  pro- 
fession, as  well  as  in  the  same  school.  Teachers  would 
then  be  more  likely  to  become  community  leaders, 
and  could  work  out,  through  a  period  long  enough 
to  test  its  value,  a  consistent  educational  and  social 
policy. 

A  Teacherage  for  Every  Rural  School.  —  Another 
feature  of  the  new  rural  school  system  should  be  the 
teacherage,  which  should  be  located  on  or  near  the 
school  grounds.  It  should  be  a  model  rural  home 
with  modern  equipment  and  a  well  laid  out  lawn,  and 
should  serve  as  a  standing  lesson  and  example  to  the 
community.  One  of  the  chief  reasons  why  desirable 
and  capable  teachers  do  not  remain  longer  in  the 
rural  schools  is  the  absence,  in  many  localities,  of  satis- 
factory living  conditions.  Other  nations  have  recog- 
nized and  met  this  need.  In  Denmark,  every  rural 
school  has  its  teacher's  house  with  kitchen  garden  and 
flower  garden.  It  is  the  permanent  residence  of  the 
educational  leader,  who,  as  a  rule,  continues  his  work 
in  one  school  from  ten  to  fifty  years.  Many  school- 
masters in  that  country  devote  their  entire  lives  to  one 
or  two  communities.  In  France,  every  public  school 
teacher  is  provided  at  public  expense  with  living  quar- 
ters. The  same  system  is  spreading  through  Sweden, 
Norway,  and  Finland.  The  United  States  has  made 


130  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

some  tentative  beginnings  in  this  direction.  The 
State  of  Washington  is  providing  living  quarters  for 
teachers.  North  Dakota,  in  1914,  had  twenty- two 
schools  with  teacherages.  Mississippi,  North  Carolina, 
Illinois,  Tennessee,  Oklahoma,  and  Minnesota  have 
made  promising  experiments.  In  Hawaii  one-third 
of  the  schools  have  cottages  built  at  public  expense. 
A  teachers'  house  is  particularly  necessary  to  the  larger 
consolidated  school  which  it  is  now  agreed  will  be  the 
typical  rural  educational  institution  of  the  future. 

Courses  of  Study  Adapted  to  Present  Rural  Needs. 
—  A  more  adequate  curriculum  for  rural  schools  is  an 
essential  accompaniment  to  the  other  reforms  men- 
tioned, and  will  follow  as  a  matter  of  course  the  lifting 
of  the  standards  for  rural  teachers.  The  boys  and 
girls  of  to-morrow  must  be  given  a  wider  and  clearer 
vision,  and  a  training  that  will  beautify  and  make 
fruitful  the  hills  and  valleys  of  our  land.  To  this  end, 
we  must  reorganize  the  rural  courses  of  study  so  that 
all  phases  of  rural  life  and  all  classes  of  rural  children 
shall  receive  attention.  Agriculture  is  a  field  for  dis- 
tinguished achievement.  The  successful  farmer  of 
to-day  is  a  scientist,  a  naturalist,  and  a  business  man. 
He  understands  the  meaning  of  efficiency  as  applied 
to  time,  energy,  and  money.  If  we  can  keep  a  fair 
proportion  of  our  most  vigorous,  capable,  enterpris- 
ing, and  idealistic  young  people  on  the  farm  for  the 
next  generation,  our  problem  of  rural  life  development 
will  be  on  the  high  road  to  solution.  These  young 
idealists  must  be  inspired  with  a  rural  loyalty  that  is 
born  of  kinship,  love  of  home,  and  a  vision  of  the 
possibilities  of  rural  life  that  will  make  them  willing  to 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  131 

serve  mankind  in  the  agricultural  district.  A  practi- 
cal study  of  agriculture,  while  necessary,  is  not  enough. 
The  curriculum  must  be  broad  enough  to  direct  at- 
tention to,  and  arouse  interest  in,  all  phases  of  country 
life  and  the  agencies  at  hand  for  the  achievement  of 
the  highest  possibilities  on  the  farm. 

Home  life  must  not  be  neglected  in  the  new  curric- 
ulum of  rural  schools,  for  the  home  is  one  of  the  funda- 
mental institutions  of  American  life,  and  particularly 
of  American  farm  life.  The  public  schools  of  both  city 
and  country  have  too  long  overlooked  the  fact  that 
girls  need  training  in  home-making.  Or,  perhaps  it 
would  be  truer  to  say  that,  since  many  homes  no  longer 
train  girls  as  home-makers,  it  now  becomes  the  duty 
of  the  public  schools  to  help  with  the  task.  The  cen- 
sus of  1910  shows  that  86.7  per  cent  of  the  women  in 
America  twenty-five  years  of  age  and  over  are  married. 
Most  of  them  begin  their  married  life  with  little  under- 
standing of  the  duties  they  should  assume  and  practi- 
cally no  preparation  for  them.  A  rural  school  teacher 
who  has  been  trained  in  domestic  science  as  well  as  in 
the  teaching  of  the  three  "  R's"  will  be  able  to  render 
material  assistance  to  the  overworked  farmer's  wife. 
The  average  country  woman,  even  in  America  in  this 
twentieth  century,  does  not  always  occupy  an  enviable 
position.  Her  working  day  is  quite  as  long  as  that  of 
her  husband,  and  her  husband  has  one  advantage, 
namely,  that  in  one  day  in  seven  he  rests.  Not  so  his 
wife !  Her  rest  day  is  often  her  busiest  one,  for  rela- 
tives or  neighbors  may  come  in  to  call  and  to  dine. 
Labor-saving  devices  for  the  household  have  been  slow 
to  appear  on  the  market  —  slower  in  reaching  the 


132  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

home  that  needs  them.  The  farmer  has  his  agricultural 
machinery  many  years  before  the  wife  obtains  a  wash- 
ing machine  or  running  water  in  the  house.  Indeed, 
the  development  of  the  machine  age  in  agricultural 
production  must  precede  the  machine  age  in  the 
home.  But  even  when  this  is  taken  into  consideration, 
it  is  true  that  wives  often  use  the  old  hand  utensils  of 
their  grandmothers  long  after  modern  housekeeping 
devices  have  been  at  their  disposal.  The  well- trained, 
tactful  rural  teacher  should  be  able  to  do  much  to  pro- 
mote modern  methods  of  housekeeping  on  the  farm. 

Relief  for  the  farm  woman  from  the  strain  of  over- 
work is  essential  to  her  social  efficiency.  A  half-sick 
drudge  is  a  poor  wife  and  an  even  poorer  mother,  and 
the  small  margin  of  time  —  if  indeed  there  be  any  — 
which  she  has  left  for  social  pleasure  and  mental 
cultivation  makes  it  nearly  impossible  for  her  to  keep 
up  with  current  events,  to  do  any  general  reading, 
to  enjoy  or  direct  her  family's  life,  and  to  mingle  in 
neighborhood  life.  The  domestic  science  course  in 
rural  schools  should  therefore  stress  scientific  planning 
of  housework  and  the  use  of  labor-saving  devices,  and 
the  real  meaning  of  home-making. 

Furthermore,  the  woman  is  handicapped  by  her 
surroundings.  The  farm  homestead  is  frequently 
neither  so  attractive  nor  so  convenient  as  it  might  be 
made.  The  rural  school  curriculum  may  well  in- 
clude an  attractive  course  in  farm  home  planning. 
Plans  for  artistic  houses  which  can  be  built  at  a  mod- 
erate cost  and  which  are  suitable  to  a  rural  setting 
should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  every  farm  boy  and 
girl. 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  133 

The  curriculum  may  also  include  a  study  of  the 
natural  environment  of  the  neighborhood,  —  the  trees, 
shrubs,  and  native  flowers  which  can  with  little  diffi- 
culty be  used  in  beautifying  the  farmstead.  This 
part  of  the  course  might  be  advantageously  connected 
with  the  home  project  work  described  later  in  this 
chapter. 

The  civic  and  political  side  of  rural  life  should 
also  be  related  to  the  curriculum,  so  that  the  young 
people  of  the  rural  districts  may  have  a  clearer  con- 
ception of  the  times  in  which  they  live.  Ideals 
which  will  make  stronger  and  better  citizens  must  be 
implanted,  developing  a  patriotism  as  strong  and 
active  in  peace  as  in  war.  The  school  must  help  the 
home  and  the  church  in  raising  the  social  and  ethical 
standards  of  the  masses  and  in  relieving  our  nation  of 
its  great  burden  of  crime,  poverty,  mental  defective- 
ness,  and  disease.  In  a  democracy,  the  school  must 
do  what  the  home  and  the  church  fail  to  do,  because  the 
public  school  can  be  controlled  by  public  opinion 
and  public  authority  to  a  greater  extent  than  any  other 
institution.  The  quality  of  our  citizenship  in  the  lower 
classes  is  now  almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  our  school 
teachers;  and  the  social  life  of  our  people  must  tend 
continuously  upward. 

The  school  term  should  be  as  long  as  local  conditions 
will  permit  —  nine  or  ten  months  for  the  younger 
pupils  and  not  less  than  seven  or  eight  for  the  older 
ones  who  must  help  with  the  farm  work.  The  outside 
reading,  nature  study,  and  project  work  of  these  older 
pupils  should  be  under  the  supervision  of  the  teachers 
during  the  months  when  they  are  not  in  attendance. 


134  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

If  the  district  is  not  able  to  maintain  a  school  for  so 
many  months,  state  or  federal  aid  should  bring  it  up 
to  the  required  standard.  Education  is  a  national 
matter,  for  a  boy  or  girl  educated  in  Maine  may  spend 
the  latter  part  of  his  life  in  Louisiana  or  California. 
Yet  no  district  should  be  permitted  to  cease  local  taxa- 
tion and  depend  upon  outside  funds. 

Consolidated  Schools.  —  In  contrast  to  the  one- 
room,  one- teacher  school,  with  seven  or  eight  pupils 
in  as  many  grades,  there  is  now  developing  in  many 
parts  of  the  country  the  township  consolidated  school. 
The  superintendent  of  one  such  school  describes  the 
school  plant  in  an  announcement  to  the  patrons  of  the 
school :  ' '  The  rooms  have  been  newly  cleaned  and  re- 
decorated, and  all  needed  equipment  and  supplies  are 
at  hand.  Seven  experienced  teachers  are  instructing 
in  the  ten  grades  offered  by  the  school  this  year,  and  an 
approved  course  of  study  is  providing  practical  and 
efficient  development  for  the  160  pupils  enrolled." 
A  month  later,  in  another  bulletin,  the  same  super- 
intendent writes :  '  The  school  nurse  is  examining 
pupils  now  for  physical  defects,  and  parents  should 
consult  a  reliable  adviser  immediately  to  have  same 
relieved,  for  they  cause  poor  work  in  most  cases." 
Then  follows  some  practical  suggestions  for  the  care 
of  the  child's  health  in  the  home,  proper  food  for  the 
school  lunch,  and  the  practice  of  "  health  chores." 
This  school  provides  a  warm  lunch  for  the  children, 
the  materials  for  which  can  be  supplied  by  the  parents. 
A  night  school  is  conducted  two  nights  a  week 
for  three  months  during  the  winter,  for  all  who  de- 
sire work  in  the  common  branches.  The  high  school 


THE  DISTRICT   SCHOOL  135 

work  is  being  rapidly  extended,  and  the  school  is  a 
center  for  many  kinds  of  community  activities. 

Public  transportation  to  and  from  school  is  provided 
by  law  in  that  state,  so  that  the  pupils  who  live  at  any 
distance  from  the  school  are  spared  the  difficulties  of 
traveling  back  and  forth  on  foot  in  summer  heat  and 
winter  cold,  and  in  the  rains  and  storms  of  spring  and 
fall.  The  anxiety  of  parents  to  secure  for  their  chil- 
dren as  good  an  education  as  their  neighbor's  children 
are  receiving  will  cause  a  keener  interest  in  good 
roads,  for  the  law  provides  that  when  roads  are  impass- 
able transportation  will  not  be  supplied. 

The  school  described  is  typical.  It  is  not  one  of 
the  best.  Its  plant,  so  the  superintendent  says,  is 
already  inadequate  and  an  addition  is  hoped  for  by 
another  year. 

With  12,000  such  schools  in  the  United  States  in 
1915  and  the  number  constantly  growing,  the  prospect 
for  rural  education  is  unquestionably  improving,  and 
the  hope  for  a  more  healthful  country  life  seems  near 
at  hand.  However,  large  sections  of  the  United  States 
are  still  untouched  by  this  movement,  and  there  are 
spots  here  and  there  in  the  states  which  are  most 
advanced  that  have  not  yet  measured  up  to  their 
possibilities. 

The  advantages  of  such  a  school  are  many  and 
obvious.  A  few  of  them  may  be  enumerated.  More 
children  are  educated  and  all  receive  a  better  educa- 
tion than  in  the  old  type  of  school.  The  courses  of 
study  in  the  grades  can  be  better  correlated  with  the 
work  in  agriculture  in  the  high  school.  Various  types 
of  courses  can  be  given,  suited  to  the  various  needs. 


136  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

Better  teachers  can  be  secured,  each  one  trained  in  her 
subject  or  in  the  teaching  of  certain  grades.  More  men 
will  be  attracted  to  the  ranks  of  teaching.  Better  super- 
vision is  possible.  Social  center  work  may  be  established 
in  the  school  building.  The  assembly  room  is  large 
enough  for  lectures  and  entertainments,  and  for  those 
programs  prepared  by  pupils  which  are  always  inter- 
esting to  parents  and  to  the  whole  community.  The 
good  will  of  the  entire  community  is  thus  obtained 
for  the  school  and  loyal  support  is  secured.  The 
school  becomes  an  active  agency  for  rural  life  better- 
ment, as  each  teacher  can  have  a  particular  phase  of 
the  community  life  for  his  or  her  special  line  of  social 
service  work.  The  teacher  of  athletics  and  gym- 
nasium work  for  boys  can  look  after  the  social 
life  and  training  of  the  young  men ;  the  teacher  of 
gymnastics  for  girls  can  look  after  the  social  life 
and  training  of  the  young  women ;  the  domestic 
science  teacher  can  visit  the  homes  and  work  among 
the  farmers'  wives ;  the  teachers  of  agricultural 
subjects  can  act  as  advisers  to  the  farmers  on  such 
matters  as  crops,  weeds,  insect  pests,  animals,  co- 
operative buying  and  selling,  dairying,  and  the  fruits 
of  the  district.  The  community  would  have  at  its 
service  expert  advice  and  help  along  all  lines  of  ac- 
tivity. Such  a  school  provides  an  education  that  will 
fit  boys  and  girls  for  rural  life.  Most  of  the  work 
is  an  actual  part  of  the  children's  lives.  It  gives 
rural  children  work  in  hygiene,  in  social  and  moral 
training,  in  home-making,  and  in  economics  —  sub- 
jects that  will  develop  standards  that  will  guide  them 
in  the  perplexities  of  twentieth-century  conditions. 


THE   DISTRICT   SCHOOL  137 

There  may  be  places  in  the  United  States  where, 
because  of  climate,  topography,  or  scanty  population, 
the  one-room  school  must  be  retained.  In  such  in- 
stances, it  should  be  made  the  best  possible  unit  of  its 
type,  and  the  township  or  county  should  make  provi- 
sion for  the  children  to  continue  their  education  at  the 
nearest  secondary  school.  In  case  a  consolidated 
school  cannot  be  effected,  a  two-  or  three-room  school 
would  be  better  than  the  one-room  type,  as  a  larger 
group  of  pupils  makes  possible  more  school  activities 
and  requires  enough  teachers  to  care  for  different 
lines  of  work. 

Home  Project  Work.  —  It  is  clear  that  the  purpose 
of  teaching  does  not  stop  with  the  school  walls,  but 
reaches  out  into  the  world  in  which  the  children  live. 
Of  this  world,  the  home  is  for  the  child  the  most  im- 
portant factor. 

The  best  way  for  the  teacher  to  reach  the  home  is 
by  requiring  the  pupils  to  do  at  home  what  they  have 
learned  at  school,  and  to  assist  the  pupils  in  forming 
their  plans  for  work  at  home.  This  is  a  logical  and 
necessary  part  of  both  agricultural  and  domestic 
arts  work,  in  that  both  are  essentially  vocational  and 
require  concrete  experience  as  the  basis  of  instruction. 
Moreover,  school  work  that  is  connected  with  the  actual 
conditions  of  the  home  will  tend  to  keep  the  pupil 
interested  and  enthusiastic.  The  spirit  of  friendliness 
and  cooperation  between  the  school  and  the  home  is 
developed.  The  School  -f  The  Home  =  Progress. 
Parents  have  more  faith  in  a  school  that  teaches  their 
children  something  immediately  practical  and  worth 
while.  The  teacher  of  agriculture  can,  through  his 


138  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

pupils,  reach  every  patron  in  the  district,  giving  to 
each  a  clearer  appreciation  of  the  problems  involved 
in  the  work  of  the  farm.  The  teacher  of  domestic  arts 
has  much  missionary  work  to  do  along  the  line  of 
teaching  sane  and  healthful  living,  and  good  taste. 
She  has  the  opportunity  to  become  the  friend  and 
adviser  of  every  home-maker  in  the  district. 

Work  of  this  sort,  assigned  by  the  teacher  and  per- 
formed in  connection  with  the  home  routine,  is  called 
a  "  home  project."  Projects  may  be  grouped  ac- 
cording to  their  chief  aim,  as  production  projects, 
the  chief  purpose  of  which  is  to  produce  an  agricultural 
product  at  a  profit ;  demonstration  projects,  where  the 
chief  aim  is  to  demonstrate  improved  methods  or 
materials ;  experimental  projects,  where  there  is  un- 
certainty as  to  the  results ;  or  improvement  projects, 
where  students  undertake  the  improvement  of  plants 
and  animals,  the  home  grounds,  or  the  farm  in  gen- 
eral, with  little  hope  of  immediate  results.  During 
the  progress  of  his  school  work,  a  pupil  should  engage 
in  projects  in  each  of  these  four  classes ;  and  in  con- 
nection with  the  high  school  course  in  agriculture, 
such  work  can  be  carried  further  along  more  techni- 
cal lines.  The  work  of  these  projects  is  in  every  case 
immensely  practical.  Through  such  work  as  garden- 
ing, canning,  or  poultry-raising,  the  boys  and  girls 
learn  to  appreciate  the  meaning  of  ownership,  and 
they  develop  a  sense  of  responsibility  which  fits  them 
for  citizenship.  Through  it  also,  a  partnership  may 
be  developed  between  parents  and  their  children, 
and  parents  who  encourage  these  home  projects  find 
that  their  children  become  keenly  interested  in  the 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  139 

farm  and  the  home.  However,  the  teacher  who  has 
charge  of  the  home  project  work  must  see  that 
there  is  a  genuine  cooperation  between  parents  and 
children ;  otherwise  the  partnership  is  a  mere  empty 
husk. 

Projects  may  be  very  simple  indeed,  involving  for 
the  younger  pupils  such  things  as  doing  their  ordi- 
nary domestic  chores  by  improved  methods,  helping 
mother  keep  the  house  neat  and  attractive,  sleeping 
with  open  windows,  bathing  regularly,  —  a  dozen 
other  things  easy  to  do  but  of  infinite  social  value. 
School  credit  should  by  all  means  be  given  for  such 
home  work,  not  only  because  it  is  an  incentive  to  the 
pupil,  but  because  it  is  a  much  better  test  of  ability 
than  is  much  of  the  work  done  at  school,  and  because 
it  touches  the  home  in  a  vital  way.  Judging  from 
what  has  been  accomplished  in  the  line  of  project 
work  in  various  parts  of  this  country,  we  have 
reason  to  expect  that,  when  handled  by  adequately 
prepared  teachers,  it  should  be  a  means  of  giving 
the  school  work  a  new  value  in  the  estimation  of 
the  parents,  of  making  the  teacher  a  recognized 
force  in  the  community,  of  making  the  pupils  feel 
that  school  work  is  an  actual  part  of  life,  of  vital- 
izing and  making  more  thorough  the  school  curric- 
ulum, and  of  developing  skill  in  farm  and  home 
operations. 


QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 

i.  Weigh  our  rural  schools  in  the  balance  of  your  knowledge 
and  experience  in  the  rural  community  and  try  to  ascertain  in  how 
many  ways  they  are  found  wanting. 


140  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

2.  Why  have  the  schools  of  our  cities  progressed  more  rapidly 
than  the  schools  of  our  rural  districts  ? 

3.  Why  have  city  schools  failed  to  meet  the  needs  of  rural 
people  ? 

4.  In  what  respects  to  you  think  the  schools  in  our  cities 
surpass  the  schools  in  our  rural  districts  ? 

5.  Is  it  possible  for  the  rural  districts  to  have  schools  as  good 
as  those  in  the  cities  ?     Defend  your  opinion. 

6.  Do  you  think  the  one-room  district  school  is  responsible 
in  part  for  the  backward  condition  of  our  rural  districts  ? 

7.  Why  have  farmers  generally  opposed  the  raising  of  the 
tax  rate  ? 

8.  State  six  disadvantages  of  a  one-room  rural  school. 

9.  Are  there  subjects  which  should  be  taught  to-day  to  rural 
young  people  in  the  grades  which  cannot  be  given- in  a  one-room 
district  school?     Name  these  subjects. 

10.  Name  some  educational  advantages  of  the  rural  districts 
which  have  not  yet  been  made  use  of  by  the  rural  schools.      Why 
have  these  advantages  not  been  utilized? 

11.  Is  the  education  of  our  young  people  a  matter  of  local  or  of 
national  concern? 

12.  Do  you  believe  that  the  federal  government  should  grant 
aid  to  new  states  and  to  those  struggling  under  adverse  conditions  ? 
Defend  your  opinion. 

13.  What  should  be  the  aims  of  the  educational  system  of  a 
democracy  in  this  century? 

14.  In  how  many  ways  have  our  rural  schools  failed  to  meet  the 
needs  of  rural  people?    What  will  remedy  these  shortcomings  of 
the  district  school  system?     Defend  your  opinion. 

15.  State  seven  things  which  all  our  rural  schools  must  do 
to  meet  the  needs  of  our  rural  people  and  to  justify  the  taxes  ex- 
pended for  their  maintenance. 

1 6.  What  is  the  greatest  need  of  our  rural  people  to-day?    De- 
fend your  statement. 

17.  Why  has  it  been  so  difficult  to  obtain  a  federal  Secretary 
of  Education  with  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet  ?     Go  back  to  our  colonial 
era  and  trace  out  the  reasons  for  this  condition. 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  141 

1 8.  Why  has  teaching  been  permitted  to  serve  as  a  stepping 
stone  to  other  professions  ? 

19.  What  effects  will  the  requiring  of  professional  training  have 
upon  the  profession  of  teaching?    Will  it  raise  teaching  above  the 
position  of  a  stepping  stone  to  other  professions  ? 

20.  In  what  ways  have  the  town  and  city  high  schools  been  a 
source  of  weakness  to  most  of  the  rural  districts  ?     Does  this  con- 
dition prevail  at  present  ?     If  so,  how  can  it  be  remedied  ? 

21.  Plan  out  a  campaign  by  which  you  think  you  could  awaken 
rural  people  to  their  educational  needs  and  by  which  you  could 
arouse  them  to  action. 

22.  What  is  the  work  of  a  school  supervisor? 

23.  State  the  duties  of  a  county  superintendent  of  schools  in 
your  state. 

24.  What  is  meant  by  "tenure  of  office "  ? 

25.  Is  a  school  manse  or  teacherage  always  advisable  for  a  one- 
room  school?     State  some   arguments   in   favor   of   teacherages. 
Are  they  necessary  for  consolidated  and  other  large  schools  ?    Are 
they  desirable  ?     If  so,  why  ? 

26.  Define  "home  project"  work  and  give  advantages  of  such 
work  when  managed  by  able  teachers. 

27.  Using  your  own  homestead  as  a  project,  consider  what 
could  be  done  to  improve  the  arrangement  of  the  lawn  and  residence. 
Discuss  the  style  of  architecture  best  suited  to  this  particular  setting. 
What  local  trees,  shrubs,  vines,  and  flowers  could  you  combine  in 
the  plan  for  the  grounds  about  the  farm  buildings,  especially  for 
the  lawn?     Why  has  the  architecture  of  farm  homes  been  of  such 
an  inferior  grade?     Make  a  collection  of  at  least  a  dozen  pictures 
of  residences  that  would  be  suitable  for  a  rural  setting  and  for  a 
farm  home.     Make  a  list  of  at  least  a  dozen  names  that  would 
be  appropriate  for  rural  homesteads,  as  Brook  Farm,  Cloverdale, 
etc. 

28.  State  the  kinds  of  training  which  the  rural  schools  must 
provide  if  they  are  to  meet  the  present  needs  of  rural  people. 

29.  State  some  advantages  of  the  consolidated  rural  school. 

30.  In  case  it  is  not  possible  for  a  district  to  have  a  consolidated 
school,  what  is  the  next  best  thing  to  be  done  ? 


142  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

ADDITIONAL  QUESTIONS 

The  following  questions  will  lead  to  a  clearer  understanding  of 
school  conditions  in  any  rural  district : 

1 .  How  could  the  school  system  in  your  district  be  reorganized 
to  secure  the  advantages  of  unified  administration  enjoyed  by  city 
schools  ? 

2.  Is  yours  a  climate  or  locality  in  which  consolidation  is 
inadvisable  or  impossible  ? 

3.  How  would  standardization  help  the  rural  schools  in  your 
district  ? 

4.  Would  a  county  system  of  taxation  improve  the  school 
conditions  in  your  district  ? 

5.  Have  you  known  instances  where  rural  boards  of  education 
have  failed  to  obey  state  laws  ? 

6.  What    advantages    would    your    school    district   gain   by 
providing  a  teacherage,  or  publicly  owned  residence  for  the  teacher 
or  teachers  ?     Should  such  a  home  be  a  part  of  the  school  plant  ? 

7.  Have  you  noticed  any  results  of  rural  neglect  of  physical 
education  and  health  ? 

8.  Has  the  teaching  of  agriculture  been  neglected? 

9.  In  what  ways  have  the  small  rural  high  schools  in  your 
vicinity  been  neglected  ? 

10.  Do  you  observe  a  need  of  training  in  domestic  economy 
among  your  girls  ? 

1 1 .  How  could  your  school  be  provided  with  a  library  ? 

12.  How  could  better  rural  school  officers  be  secured  in  your 
district  ? 

13.  Does  your  rural  school  lack  equipment ?     Why? 

14.  What  effects  do  roads  have  upon  schools  ? 

15.  Could  your  school  be  used  as  a  social  center?     Plan  a  rural 
school  building  which  will  readily  adapt  itself  to  community  meet- 
ings. 

1 6.  What  salary  is  paid  the  teacher  in  your  district?     What  is 
the  teacher's  average  length  of  service  in  your  school?     Why  do 
your  teachers  leave?     What  preparation  do  you  require? 

17.  Make  out  a  course  of  training  which  you  would  consider 
ideal  for  the  rural  teacher  in  your  district. 


THE  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  143 

1 8.  How  long  is  the  school  term  in  your  district  ?     Is  your  school 
plant  idle  for  any  large  share  of  the  time  ?     Can  all  the  children  in 
your  district  attend  during  the  whole  term  ?     Could  special  arrange- 
ments be  made  to  fit  the  needs  of  pupils  who  can  come  only  part  of 
the  time  ? 

19.  There  are  in  this  country  five  and  a  half  millions  of  illiterate 
men  and  women.     Many  millions  more  can  barely  read  and  write. 
How  came  such  a  condition  to  exist  in  this  country  ?      What  classes 
make  up  this  illiterate  element? 

20.  Write  to  the   Bureau  of   Education,    Department   of  the 
Interior,  Washington,  D.  C.,  for  the  last   annual   report  of  the 
Commissioner  of  Education. 

REFERENCES 

BETTS,  GEORGE  H.  New  Ideals  in  Rural  Schools.  The  entire 
work.  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  1913. 

BETTS,  GEORGE  H.,  and  HALL,  OTIS  E.  Better  Rural  Schools. 
Chapters  I,  X,  XII,  XIV,  XV,  XVI,  XVIII,  XIX,  XXI,  XXIV, 
XXVIII,  XXIX.  Bobbs-Merrill  Company,  Indianapolis, 
1914. 

COOK,  KATHERINE  M.,  and  MONAHAN,  A.  C.  Rural  School  Super- 
vision. Bulletin  No.  48,  1916,  United  States  Bureau  of  Edu- 
cation, Washington,  D.  C. 

CUBBERLEY,  ELLWOOD  P.  The  Improvement  of  Rural  Schools. 
The  entire  work.  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  1912. 
— .  Rural  Life  and  Education,  Chapters  I,  II,  IV,  VII. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  1914. 

DRESSLAR,  FLETCHER  B.  Rural  Schoolhouses  and  Grounds.  Bulle- 
tin No.  12,  1914,  United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washing- 
ton, D.  C. 

FOGHT,  HAROLD  W.  Efficiency  and  Preparation  of  Rural  School 
Teachers.  Bulletin  No.  49,  1914,  United  States  Bureau  of 
Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.  Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapter  XV. 
The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 

HODGES,  W.  T.  Important  Features  in  Rural  School  Improvement. 
Bulletin  No.  25,  1914,  United  States  Bureau  of  Education, 
Washington,  D.  C. 


144  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

JARVIS,  C.  D.  Work  of  School  Children  During  Out-of-School  Hours. 
Bulletin  No.  20,  1917,  United  States  Bureau  of  Education, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

LARSON,  W.  E.  The  Wisconsin  County  Training  Schools  for 
Teachers  in  Rural  Schools.  Bulletin  No.  17,  1916,  United 
States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

McKEEVER,  WILLIAM  A.  Farm  Boys  and  Girls,  Chapters  VIII, 
XVI,  XVII.  The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1912. 

MONAHAN,  A.  C.  Consolidation  of  Rural  Schools  and  Transportation 
of  Pupils  at  Public  Expense.  Bulletin  No.  30,  1914,  United 
States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

.  County- Unit  Organization  for  the  Administration  of  Rural 

Schools.  Bulletin  No.  44,  1914,  United  States  Bureau  of  Edu- 
cation, Washington,  D.  C. 

.  The  Status  of  Rural  Education  in  the  United  States.  Bulle- 
tin No.  8, 1913,  United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington, 
D.  C. 

MONAHAN,  A.  C.,  and  WRIGHT,  R.  H.  Training  Courses  for  Rural 
Teachers.  Bulletin  No.  I,  1913,  United  States  Bureau  of 
Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

QUICK,  HERBERT.  The  Brown  Mouse.  The  entire  book.  Bobbs- 
Merrill  Company,  Indianapolis,  1915. 

RANDALL,  J.  L.  Educative  and  Economic  Possibilities  of  School- 
Directed  Home  Gardening  in  Richmond,  Indiana.  United 
States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

WILLIAMS,  J.  HAROLD.  Reorganizing  a  County  System  of  Rural 
Schools.  Bulletin  No.  16,  1916,  United  States  Bureau  of 
Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Illiteracy  in  the  United  States.  Bulletin  No.  20,  1913, 

United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Special  Features  in  City  School  Systems.  Bulletin  No. 

31,  1913,  United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington, 
D.  C. 


CHAPTER  VII 
RURAL  SECONDARY  SCHOOLS 

A  correct  attitude  toward  rural  life  is  important  in 
the  rural  secondary  schools.  Such  schools  have  in  many 
ways  been  a  source  of  weakness  rather  than  of  strength 
to  the  communities  which  have  supported  them,  in 
their  effect  upon  the  minds  and  interests  of  the  farm 
youth.  They  have  been  a  direct  means  of  taking  out 
of  the  community  the  very  manhood  and  womanhood 
so  necessary  to  the  future  prosperity  and  advancement 
of  the  locality.  Because  of  a  lack  of  vision  and  under- 
standing of  the  possibilities  in  rural  life,  the  teaching 
and  the  work  given  have  tended  to  destroy  the  stu- 
dents' respect  for  country  life  and  their  interest  in  it, 
and  have  diverted  them  into  the  professions  or  urban 
businesses  instead  of  keeping  them  in  the  rural  com- 
munity as  intelligent  farmers  and  rural  leaders.  State 
Superintendent  of  Education  Morrison,  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, called  attention  to  this  fact  in  his  biennial  report 
for  1907-8. 

"  During  the  first  three-quarters  of  the  nineteenth  century  every 
group  of  three  or  four  towns  had  its  academy,  usually  an  endowed 
institution.  Out  of  these  academies  went  a  steady  stream  of  sons 
and  daughters  who  were,  other  things  being  equal,  always  the 
strongest  of  the  generation,  for  otherwise  they  would  not  have 
gained  this  education.  Seldom  did  they  settle  upon  the  old  farm 
or  in  the  home  town.  Their  education  had  fitted  them  for  other 
things.  .  .  .  They  became  lawyers,  or  physicians,  or  clergymen, 
or  schoolmasters,  or  business  men  in  the  cities,  and  the  girls  went 


146  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

with  them,  prevailingly,  to  be  their  wives.  Their  children  grew  up 
under  city  conditions  and  went  to  city  schools.  The  unambitious, 
the  dull,  the  unfortunate  boys  and  girls  of  the  old  countryside,  who 
could  not  get  to  the  academy,  as  a  class  remained  behind  and 
became  the  dominant  stock.  And  they  reproduced  their  kind  for 
another  generation,  upon  whom  the  same  sorting  process  was  carried 
out.  Then  the  factory  system  seized  upon  the  strong  limbed  and 
restless,  albeit  slow-witted,  and  began  to  sort  them  out  and  remove 
them.  Finally,  the  Civil  War  came  and  struck  down  the  idealists 
by  the  wholesale,  mostly  boys  and  young  men  who  had  not  yet 
reproduced  themselves  in  a  new  generation.  Now  upon  a  journey 
through  rural  New  England  you  will  see  fine  old  mansions,  showing 
by  their  architecture  that  they  date  back  well  toward  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  ample  old  homesteads  with  their 
capacious  barns,  all  of  them  more  or  less  in  a  state  of  decay.  Of 
many  nothing  but  the  cellar  hole,  and,  at  first  sight,  an  unaccount- 
able orchard  is  left.  These  were  the  homes  of  a  race  which  lived 
and  prospered,  which  cleared  the  land,  and  built  homes,  and  added 
barn  to  barn,  which  accumulated  wealth,  and  gave  virile  expression 
of  itself  in  church,  in  state,  and  in  educational  institutions.  .  .  . 
But  that  race  allowed  its  sons  and  daughters  to  be  educated  away 
from  the  farm  and  the  country  and  from  the  State.  In  their  place 
today,  we  too  often  have  a  dwindling  town,  a  neglected  farm,  a 
closed  church,  an  abandoned  schoolhouse." 

City  and  country  legislators,  educators,  and  farmers, 
all  of  us  in  fact,  admit  these  conditions  and  accept  the 
verdict  that  we  have  not  been  either  awake  or  doing 
our  duty.  In  our  proper  and  commendable  zeal  to 
educate  the  heathen  in  foreign  lands,  to  provide  the 
best  possible  conditions  for  the  newly  arrived  immi- 
grant child,  and  to  reform  our  cities,  we  have  forgotten 
and  neglected  our  own  kindred  and  country  neighbors. 
The  wide  discrepancy  between  the  quality  of  educa- 
tion provided  city  children  and  that  provided  country 
children  should  not  continue.  Our  rural  districts 


RURAL  SECONDARY  SCHOOLS  147 

should  have  schools  that  will  meet  the  needs  of  their 
children  and  build  up  the  self-respect  of  their  people. 

Rural  People  Have  Lacked  High  School  Educa- 
tion. —  Since  the  establishment  of  the  Boston  English 
High  School  in  1821,  the  free  high  schools  of  our 
towns  and  cities  have  grown  rapidly  in  number  and 
have  continued  to  expand  in  the  amount  and  kind  of 
work  they  offer.  The  American  people  have  been 
generous  in  their  support  of  the  grade  schools,  but  it 
is  the  high  school  that  has  won  their  lavish  enthusiasm. 
Notwithstanding  this  development  of  secondary  edu- 
cation in  the  towns  and  cities,  the  rural  districts 
have  been  totally  neglected  save  for  those  academies 
and  high  schools  in  such  urban  centers  as  are  easily 
accessible  to  rural  people.  Consequently,  the  cost 
of  tuition  and  the  lack  of  a  convenient  means  of  trans- 
portation have  deprived  all  except  a  few  of  our  rural 
young  people  of  a  secondary  education. 

"  Within  a  few  miles  of  the  border  of  a  city  with  a  magnificent 
school  system,  with  palatial  buildings,  with  trained  teachers  and 
supervisors,  with  elaborate  library  and  technical  equipment,  with 
careful  health  supervision  of  its  children,  in  short,  with  every 
conceivable  opportunity,  may  be  found  the  educational  facilities 
of  a  backwoods  civilization."  l 

The  Recognized  Need  for  Rural  Secondary  Educa- 
tion. —  We  find  in  America  to-day  a  very  general 
belief  that  industrial  workers  should  receive  some 
degree  of  industrial  training  at  public  expense.  Agri- 
culture is  a  basic  industry,  upon  the  prosperity  of 
which  national  welfare  largely  depends.  In  state  after 
state  there  is  evidence  of  a  demand  for  courses  in  agri- 

1  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education,  1913. 


148  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

culture  more  thorough  and  advanced  than  is  possible 
in  the  elementary  school.  A  demand  is  arising  for 
rural  secondary  education.  In  some  states,  this  further 
teaching  of  agriculture  is  required  by  law  in  all  high 
schools  accessible  to  rural  districts ;  in  others,  separate 
agricultural  institutions  have  sprung  full-fledged  from 
the  fiat  of  legislatures,  without  regard  to  their  relation 
to  the  already  existing  educational  system  or  to  the 
supply  of  teachers  prepared  to  give  the  required  work. 
But  it  is  now  generally  recognized  that  advanced 
courses  in  agriculture  must  be  definitely  and  intimately 
related  to  the  general  system  of  education,  and  that 
such  courses  can  be  most  profitably  given  in  the  high 
school. 

Moreover,  our  high  schools  should  base  their  pro- 
grams, in  part  at  least,  on  the  life  and  interests  of  the 
district  in  which  they  are  located,  and  should  give 
some  courses  of  study  especially  adapted  to  the  needs  of 
their  respective  communities.  Thus,  the  high  schools 
of  New  England  will  differ  in  part  from  those  of  the 
South  and  of  the  Middle  West,  and  each  section  of  the 
nation  will  develop  schools  that  serve  its  own  partic- 
ular agricultural  and  social  needs. 

Social  workers  who  see  beneath  the  surface  of  our 
national  life  and  who  understand  that  the  safety  of  our 
democracy  depends  upon  improving  standards  of  lifey 
agree  that  a  high  school  education  must  be  made  pos- 
sible to  every  child.  This  secondary  school  work  must 
be  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  students,  —  to  those  who 
desire  to  go  to  college,  or  into  business,  farming,  or 
home-making.  A  high  school  education  is  the  very  least 
that  a  citizen  of  to-morrow  can  get  along  with  in  either 


RURAL  SECONDARY  SCHOOLS  149 

town  or  country  if  he  is  to  live  successfully  under  our 
present  industrial  and  social  conditions. 

Types  of  the  New  Rural  Secondary  School.  —  With 
the  growing  recognition  of  this  need  for  secondary 
education  for  our  country  people  have  come  three  types 
of  rural  high  schools.  The  first,  the  special  agri- 
cultural school,  came  as  a  protest  by  our  farmers  against 
the  failure  of  our  schools  to  teach  agriculture  as  a 
vocation  ;  the  second,  the  consolidated  high  school, 
was  a  movement  toward  economy  and  efficiency ; 
the  third,  the  trade-center  high  school,  is  an  adapta- 
tion of  an  already  existing  institution.  These  three 
types  are  found  in  every  section  of  the  United  States, 
and  all  together  there  are  more  than  2000  public  and 
private  secondary  institutions  now  giving  some  sort 
of  agricultural  education. 

The  Special  Agricultural  School.  -  -  The  first  of  the 
three  types  of  rural  high  schools  just  enumerated, 
the  special  agricultural  school,  is  strictly  vocational. 
It  teaches  only  agriculture,  manual  training,  and 
domestic  science.  It  has  been  especially  designed  for 
farmers'  sons  and  daughters.  Only  those  who  are 
fourteen  years  of  age  and  who  have  completed  the 
eight  grades  of  the  elementary  school  are  admitted. 
The  first  special  agricultural  school  was  established 
in  1888  at  Abbeville,  Alabama.  According  to  the 
latest  information  available,  there  are  now  about 
sixty-eight  of  these  institutions,  of  eight  different 
types,  scattered  over  seventeen  states.  They  are 
organized,  in  some  cases,  as  state  agricultural  high 
schools  and  are  supported  by  the  state,  as  in  Minne- 
sota and  California.  In  other  states,  they  are  district 


150  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

agricultural  high  schools  and  are  supported  by  a  dis- 
trict of  the  state.  Alabama  has  one  for  each  of  her 
congressional  districts,  while  Georgia,  Virginia,  and 
Oklahoma  have  one  for  each  of  their  judicial  districts. 
Arkansas  was  divided  arbitrarily  for  this  purpose  into 
four  districts  and  given  one  such  school  for  each  dis- 
trict. In  a  number  of  states,  the  county  is  the  unit  of 
area,  as  in  Wisconsin  where  the  State  pays  two-thirds 
of  the  annual  expense  if  the  total  is  not  over  $9000. 

The  courses  of  study  in  these  schools  range  from 
short  courses  of  fourteen  weeks  for  two  years,  to 
courses  of  nine  or  ten  months'  duration  for  a  period  of 
two  to  four  years.  Most  of  the  student's  work  is  done 
at  the  school ;  much  of  it  by  the  laboratory  method. 
In  many  of  these  schools,  the  students  spend  forty 
hours  per  week  at  the  school  plant. 

This  type  of  agricultural  school  meets  the  needs  of  a 
large  number  of  young  people  who  have  only  a  rural 
grade  school  education.  The  short  winter  course  is 
particularly  helpful  to  this  class  of  students,  who 
would  otherwise  be  unable  to  take  the  special  training 
they  thus  receive.  It  relieves  the  agricultural  col- 
lege of  some  of  its  winter  short-course  work,  and  of 
some  of  the  elementary  work  which  the  college  must 
do  under  the  old  system.  It  has  helped  the  high 
school  to  see  its  possibilities  and  to  realize  that  it  can 
add  courses  in  agriculture  to  its  present  work,  thus 
proving  that  agriculture  has  a  place  in  the  high  school. 
It  can  give  practical  work  in  farming,  and  adapt  its 
courses  to  the  particular  needs  of  the  local  community. 
It  fosters  and  develops  many  rural  organizations,  and 
sends  its  students  back  to  the  farm  to  work  not  only  for 


RURAL   SECONDARY   SCHOOLS  151 

the  improvement  of  their  own  farm,  but  also  for  the 
improvement  of  the  whole  community. 

Some  of  the  objections  to  the  special  agricultural 
school  are  that  it  serves  too  large  an  area ;  it  does 
not  fit  into  our  present  school  system ;  the  courses 
offered  cover  too  narrow  a  range  for  American  citi- 
zenship. Dormitories  are  not  provided,  and  the 
young  people  must  live  away  from  home  and  in  such 
private  homes  as  will  admit  them,  at  a  time  when  home 
life  is  particularly  necessary  for  their  moral  training. 
Furthermore,  it  is  not  accessible  to  all  the  rural  young 
people,  nor  would  it  be  desirable  to  have  all  the  young 
people  from  the  farm  districts  studying  only  such  agri- 
cultural courses  as  are  offered.  All  rural  children  are 
not  "  land  minded,"  and  consequently  do  not  desire 
to  follow  farm  life,  any  more  than  do  all  city  children 
desire  to  follow  distinctly  city  vocations. 

The  Consolidated  Rural  High  School. —  The  sec- 
ond type  of  rural  high  schools,  the  consolidated  high 
school,  has  come  as  a  logical  development  from  the 
consolidated  rural  grade  school.  The  essential  differ- 
ences between  the  special  agricultural  school  and  the 
consolidated  rural  high  school  are  found  in  the  courses 
of  study  they  offer  and  in  the  degree  of  accessibility0 
The  agricultural  school  is  essentially  vocational,  offer- 
ing only  three  courses :  agriculture,  manual  training, 
domestic  science.  The  consolidated  rural  high  school 
is  broader  and  more  cultural,  bringing  all  classes  of 
the  community  together  in  one  social  body.  It  gener- 
ally offers  four  courses ;  namely,  classical,  commercial, 
domestic  arts,  and  agricultural.  Thus  it  serves  those 
who  wish  to  go  to  college  or  into  business  as  well  as 


152  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

those  who  wish  to  return  directly  to  the  farm.  Each  of 
these  courses  should  give  four  years  of  work,  although 
short  sessions  should  also  be  provided  for  those  who  can- 
not attend  during  the  entire  school  year.  In  addition, 
graduate  courses  may  be  offered  to  those  who  have 
completed  regular  work  but  who  do  not  intend  to  go  to 
college. 

The  consolidated  school  makes  possible  a  closely 
knit  rural  school  system,  and  should  be  arranged 
on  the  Six  and  Six  Plan.  The  grades  can  then  antici- 
pate the  work  of  the  high  school,  especially  in  the 
courses  given  in  science.  The  following  plan  is  sug- 
gested : 

Elementary  Department,  grades  1-6 

High  School  I  Ju_ni°_r  S  School,  grades  7-9 


Senior  High  School,  grades  10-12 

This  organization  would  put  the  consolidated  rural 
high  school  somewhat  on  a  par  with  the  best  city 
schools.  It  would  make  it  possible  to  provide  teachers 
who  are  specialists  in  their  lines  of  work,  and  would 
tend  to  hold  pupils  in  school  longer  than  is  done 
under  the  old  Eight  and  Four  Plan. 

A  consolidated  school  plant  consisting  of  a  school 
building  with  a  good-sized  auditorium  and  a  lunch 
room,  a  teacherage,  barns,  stock,  machinery,  and  some 
land  for  garden  experiments,  can  easily  be  made  a 
community  power-house  radiating  strong  currents 
of  constructive  and  progressive  thought. 

The     Ruralized     Trade-Center     High     School. - 
Where  the  population  is  not  too  sparse,  nor  the  climate 
too  severe ;   where  the  roads  are  good,  and  the  trolley 


RURAL  SECONDARY  SCHOOLS  153 

or  train  service  favorable,  a  small  town  high  school 
can  frequently  serve  the  outlying  rural  districts. 
Under  such  a  plan,  however,  sharp  watch  must  be 
kept  that  agriculture,  manual  training,  and  domestic 
science  are  taught  as  vocational  subjects,  not  merely 
as  "  urbanized  trimmings." 

The  "  Minnesota  Plan,"  as  the  Putnam  Act  passed 
in  Minnesota  in  1909  is  sometimes  called,  provides 
an  excellent  system  for  the  association  of  rural  schools 
with  a  Central  School  for  the  purpose  of  extending  the 
influence  of  the  Central  School  to  the  rural  schools. 
Any  high,  consolidated,  or  graded  school  may  be- 
come a  Central  School  and  draw  state  aid  by  meeting 
the  requirements  laid  down  by  the  State  High  School 
Board.  This  Central  School  is  usually  located  in  a 
trade-center ;  and  if  there  is  a  high  school  in  con- 
nection with  the  Central  School,  it  can  give  not  only 
"ruralized"  courses  in  agriculture,  manual  training, 
and  domestic  science,  but  also  send  out  teachers 
of  these  subjects  to  begin  the  work  in  these  lines  in  the 
district  schools  associated  with  it  and  under  its  super- 
vision. Thus  the  students  in  the  rural  grade  schools 
are  prepared  to  begin  the  work  given  along  vocational 
lines  in  the  high  school.  While  this  type  of  high  school 
is  not  purely  agricultural,  it  can,  nevertheless,  give 
adequate  recognition  to  the  needs  of  country  boys  and 
girls  who  desire  training  to  fit  them  for  agricultural  life. 

In  Iowa,  the  law  creating  the  consolidated  school 
provides  that  "  when  a  city,  town,  or  village  contain- 
ing a  school  population  of  twenty-five  or  more  is  in- 
cluded within  any  consolidated  independent  district," 
then  the  school  building  "  shall  be  located  within  the 


154  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

limits  of  the  city,  town,  or  village,  or  upon  lands  con- 
tiguous to  such  limits."  So  that,  in  this  case,  the 
consolidated  school  and  the  trade-center  school  become 
identical.  As  mentioned  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
the  Iowa  law  provides  for  the  transportation  of  pupils 
to  and  from  the  school. 

The  Teacher  of  Agriculture.  —  Agriculture  is  a 
science  and  loses  much  if  not  taught  by  the  laboratory 
method.  This  means,  first,  that  the  rural  high  school 
must  be  well  equipped  and  have  well-prepared  teachers. 
Such  teachers  are  even  now  not  easy  to  secure.  It 
is  more  than  sixty  years  since  the  opening  of  our  first 
agricultural  college.1  During  these  past  six  decades, 
agricultural  colleges  have  provided  the  nation  with 
teachers  of  agriculture,  rather  than  with  actual  farmers, 
yet  the  supply  has  not  multiplied  so  rapidly  as  the 
schools  in  which  agriculture  is  now  being  taught,  and 
furthermore,  many  of  these  graduates  have  been  em- 
ployed by  the  government  and  by  manufacturers  and 
distributors  of  agricultural  supplies,  and  so  have  been 
drawn  away  from  the  teaching  profession.  The  in- 
structor in  agriculture  must  understand  his  subject  in 
order  to  make  the  work  in  agriculture  in  the  rural  high 
schools  effective.  He  must  have,  also,  adequate  training 
in  pedagogic  methods.  All  colleges  of  agriculture  should 
give  a  special  course  for  high  school  teachers,  such  as  is 
now  being  offered  in  many  state  universities,  state  col- 
leges of  agriculture,  normal  schools,  and  high  schools 
offering  teachers'  training  courses  for  rural  teachers. 
A  state  association  of  all  agriculture  teachers  and 

1  Michigan  State  Agricultural  College  opened  for  instruction  on  May 
13,  1857. 


RURAL  SECONDARY  SCHOOLS  155 

supervisors  would  help  to  form  a  unity  of  purpose 
among  these  rural  leaders  and  would  stimulate  prog- 
ress in  methods  of  instruction. 

The  success  of  high  school  agricultural  instruction 
will  be  furthered  if  the  teacher  settles  permanently 
in  the  district  where  he  is  working.  Every  teacher  of 
agricultural  subjects  should  be  employed  for  a  term  of 
eleven  months  on  at  least  a  three-year  contract.  This 
arrangement  would  make  it  possible  for  him  to  super- 
vise the  home  project  work  of  the  students  throughout 
the  year  and  to  carry  out  experiments  over  a  long 
enough  period  to  demonstrate  their  value. 

The  Courses  of  Study. — The  courses  should  be 
culturally  as  well  as  vocationally  adequate  for  American 
citizenship.  Besides  the  necessity  for  giving  rural 
people  a  thorough  education  that  will  make  them 
efficient  and  businesslike  farmers  and  that  will  serve 
the  special  needs  of  each  community,  the  rural  high 
school  has  the  purpose  of  training  leaders  in  the 
spiritual  enrichment  of  country  life.  For  this  reason, 
the  study  of  agriculture  and  domestic  arts  must  have 
the  cultural  elements  necessary  to  the  making  of  a 
finer  people.  Courses  given  in  the  Danish  Folk  Schools 
or  other  European  models  are  insufficient  for 
Americans.  The  American  farmer  is  not  a  peasant; 
he  is  a  master  of  rural  destiny.  As  such,  he  should  re- 
ceive from  the  public  schools  the  elements  of  a  liberal  edu- 
cation which  would  prepare  him  not  only  for  business 
success,  but  for  transforming  this  success  into  a  rich 
and  satisfying  life,  for  sharing  in  the  cultural  and 
political  affairs  of  the  nation,  and  for  leading  others  to 
a  higher  plane  of  living. 


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tional advantages  which  their  life  and  interests  are  urgently  requiring. 

156 


RURAL   SECONDARY   SCHOOLS  157 

To  meet  the  present  needs  of  the  rural  community, 
the  high  school  course  in  the  types  of  schools  dis- 
cussed in  this  chapter  should  include  the  following 
subjects  for  the  boys: 

1.  The  soil. 

2.  Plant  and  field-crop  production. 

3.  Garden  and  orchard  crops. 

4.  The  breeding,  feeding,  and  care  of  domestic  animals. 

5.  Principles  and  methods  of  dairying. 

6.  Farm  mechanics  and  manual  training. 

7.  Drainage. 

8.  Landscape  architecture. 

9.  Agricultural  economics  and  farm  management. 

10.  Rural  sociology. 

11.  At  least  three  years  of  English,  besides  a  half  year  of  prac- 
tical business  English. 

12.  Three  years  of  history    (ancient,  medieval,   and  modern, 
United  States)  besides  a  half  year  in  practical  civics. 

13.  Three  years  of  pure  science   (physics,  i    year;  chemistry, 
I  year;  botany,  one-half  year;  civic  biology,  one-half  year). 

14.  Two  and  a  half  years  of  mathematics   (algebra,   I  year; 
geometry,  I  year;    farm  arithmetic,  one-half  year). 

15.  Geography  (one-half  year  of  commercial  geography;  cne- 
half  year  of  agricultural    geography;  one-half  year    of  physical 
geography). 

1 6.  Public  speaking,  especially  debating. 

17.  Personal  hygiene  and  first  aid. 

The  course  of  study  for  girls  should  include,  on  the 
vocational  side,  the  following  subjects  : 

1.  General  cookery  and  dietetics. 

2.  Invalid  cookery. 

3.  Sewing  and  the  study  of  fabrics. 

4.  Millinery. 

5.  Marketing  and  shopping. 

6.  Laundering. 


158  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

7.  Household  chemistry. 

8.  Household  sanitation. 

9.  Household  decoration. 

10.  Household  management  and  accounts. 

11.  Personal  hygiene,  first  aid,  and  simple  nursing. 

12.  Care  of  children,  especially  infants. 

13.  Landscape  architecture. 

Work  in  English,  history,  civics,  geography,  eco- 
nomics, sociology,  public  speaking,  hygiene,  first 
aid,  physical  culture  including  out-of-door  games 
and  sports,  should  be  required  of  both  sexes  in  rural 
secondary  schools. 

Home  project  work  is  especially  important  in 
connection  with  the  high  school,  as  it  ties  the  work 
of  the  school  up  to  the  home.  Training  for  the  home 
project  may  be  secured  in  part  by  means  of  a  school 
project,  if  the  school  has  sufficient  resources  in  the 
way  of  garden  plots,  fields,  live  stock,  and  barns. 
The  boys  and  girls  of  this  age  will  be  interested  in  the 
organization  into  clubs  of  all  in  the  school  who  are  en- 
gaged in  the  project  work  and  in  affiliation  with  other 
such  clubs  in  the  country.  All  such  project  and  club 
work  should  be  closely  supervised  throughout  the 
year  and  records  kept  of  the  work  of  each  pupil. 

The  American  Association  of  Agricultural  Colleges 
and  Experiment  Stations  recommends  that  at  least 
one  fourth  of  the  students'  time  be  given  to  agri- 
culture or  to  domestic  arts,  and  the  remaining  three 
fourths  to  general  education.  Possibly  one  third  of 
the  time  would  not  be  too  much  for  strictly  voca- 
tional study,  providing  this  time  included  the  home 
project  work. 


RURAL  SECONDARY  SCHOOLS  159 

Should  the  student  decide  to  go  to  college,  the 
course  described  will  admit  him  to  all  courses  not  re- 
quiring a  foreign  language.  Should  he  not  go  to 
college,  he  will  have  had  a  cultural  as  well  as  a  voca- 
tional secondary  education.  He  will  have  an  intelli- 
gent and  sympathetic  interest  in  farm  life,  a  con- 
ception of  the  dignity  of  scientific  agriculture  as  a 
business,  and  a  broader  view  of  his  community  and  of 
the  world  at  large.  The  study  of  debating  is  especially 
recommended  for  all  juniors  and  seniors  in  high  school, 
as  it  trains  the  student  to  gather  material  and  to 
think  clearly  and  consecutively.  Moreover,  it  arouses 
the  interest  of  the  entire  community  in  the  question 
debated,  and  serves  as  a  popular  advertiser  of  issues 
before  the  public  mind,  since  of  course,  only  up- 
to-date  questions  should  be  discussed. 


QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 

1.  Give  two  reasons  why  the  rural  districts  should  have  high 
schools  especially  designed  for  their  needs. 

2.  What  are  the  special  educational  needs  of  the  rural  districts? 

3.  How  have  rural  people  succeeded  in  getting  a  high  school 
education  ?     In  what  ways  other  than  in  tuition  have  they  paid  for 
this  education? 

4.  What  conditions   resulted  in  the  establishment  of  special 
agricultural  schools  ? 

5.  What  conditions  have  brought  about  the  consolidated  rural 
high  school  ?     The  trade-center  high  school  ? 

6.  Is  it   possible  or  even  advisable  to   establish   consolidated 
schools  in  all  parts  of  this  country?    What  should  be  done  for 
localities  in  which  such  schools  cannot  be  established  ? 

7.  Should  the  same  course  in  agriculture  be  given  in  all  rural 
communities  ?    The  same  course  in  domestic  science  ? 


160  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

8.  Arrange  a  course  of  study  for  a  rural  high  school  in  Min- 
nesota.    In  Mississippi.     In  Maine.     In  California.     In  Colorado. 
In  your  own  community. 

9.  Why  has  the  study  of  agriculture  not  been  admitted  to  the 
schools  until  recently  ? 

10.  Do  you  think  that  every  girl  should  be  required  to  study 
domestic  arts  ?     Be  able  to  defend  your  opinion. 

11.  What  are  some  of  the  advantages  of  the  "home  project" 
method  in  teaching  agriculture  and  domestic  science  in  rural  high 
schools  ? 

12.  Name  some  schools  to  which  teachers  may  go  for  special 
work  in  agriculture.     For  work  in  domestic  arts. 

REFERENCES 
BRICKER,  GARLAND  A.     The  Teaching  of  Agriculture  in  the  High 

School,  Chapters  I-IV,  VI-VIII.     The  Macmillan  Company, 

New  York,  1911. 
BROWN,  H.  A.  The  Readjustment  of  the  Rural  High  School  to  the  Needs 

of  the    Community.     Bulletin   No.    20,    1912,    United   States 

Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 
BROWN,  JOHN  F.     The  American  High  School,  Chapters  XII,  XIII. 

The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1909. 
DAVENPORT,  EUGENE.    Education  for  Efficiency,  Part  I,  Chapters 

I,  III,  VI;   Part  II  (Entire).      D.  C.   Heath  and  Company, 

Boston,  1914. 
.     What  is  Involved  in  Vocational  Education.    Bulletin,  Vol. 

12,  No.  19,  University  of  Illinois. 
ELIOT,  CHARLES  W.,  and  NELSON,  ERNESTO.     Needed  Changes  in 

Secondary  Education.     Bulletin  No.   10,   1916,  United  States 

Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 
FOGHT,  H.  W.     The  Danish  Folk  High  School.     Bulletin  No.  22, 

1914,  United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 
GALPIN,  CHARLES  JOSIAH,  and  JAMES,  JOHN  A.    Rural  Relations  of 

High   Schools.     Bulletin   No.    288,    Agricultural   Experiment 

Station,  University  of  Wisconsin. 
HUMMEL,  WILLIAM  G.  and  BERTHA  R.     Materials  and  Methods  in 

High   School   Agriculture,    Chapters    I,    II,    III,    XIII.     The 

Macmillan  Company,  1913. 


RURAL   SECONDARY   SCHOOLS  161 

LEAKE,  ALBERT  H.  The  Means  and  Methods  of  Agricultural 
Education,  Chapters  V,  VIII,  XII.  Houghton  Mifflin  Com- 
pany, Boston,  1915. 

ROBISON,  C.  H.,  and  JENKS,  F.  B.  Agricultural  Instruction  in  High 
Schools.  Bulletin  No.  6,  1913,  United  States  Bureau  of 
Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

STIMSON,  R.  W.  The  Massachusetts  Home-Project  Plan  of  Vo- 
cational Agricultural  Education.  Bulletin  No.  8,  1914,  United 
States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 

WEEKS,  RUTH  MARY.     The  People's  School,  Chapters  I,  III,  VI. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  1912. 
— .     Socializing  the  Three  R's.    The  entire  work.     The  Mac- 
millan  Company,  New  York,  1919. 

Vocational  Secondary  Education.     Bulletin  No.  21,  1916, 

United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington,  D.  C. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  IN  FARM  LIFE 

Commercial  Agriculture  versus  Domestic  Agriculture. 

—  During  the  pioneer  period  of  American  agriculture 
each  farm  produced  principally  for  its  own  consumption, 
and  sold  only  a  small  fraction  of  its  product,  and 
that  in  the  local  market.  But  during  the  last  one 
hundred  years,  the  proportion  of  farms  producing  for 
the  market  rather  than  for  domestic  consumption  has 
steadily  increased,  until  to-day  the  typical  American 
farm  produces  those  things  for  which  its  soil  and  climate 
are  best  adapted,  sells  them  for  money,  and  then  pur- 
chases with  the  money  the  necessaries  for  farm  life. 

One  of  the  most  recent  steps  in  this  evolution  from 
domestic  to  commercial  farming  has  been  the  dis- 
appearance of  butter  and  cheese  making  from  the  farm. 
Twenty  years  ago  the  churn  was  a  characteristic  uten- 
sil on  the  farm  and  the  progressive  farmer  was  marked 
by  the  possession  of  a  cream  separator  and  an  improved 
churn.  To-day  the  cream  is  separated  on  the  farm, 
in  those  sections  of  the  country  where  any  considerable 
number  of  milch  cattle  are  kept,  and  then  sent  to  the 
creamery.  The  farmer  buys  his  butter  and  cheese. 
Butter  making  has  passed  from  the  domestic  into  the 
commercial  stage  in  farm  economy. 

This  fundamental  change  in  the  nature  of  the  farm 
industry,  which  brings  it  into  intimate  relationship 
with  the  urban  industries  which  similarly  produce  their 
specialties  for  sale,  and  which  buy  the  raw  materials 

162 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  163 

produced  on  the  farm  and  sell  manufactured  articles 
to  the  farmer,  has  worked  profound  changes  in  agri- 
culture as  an  industry  and  in  farm  life.  It  has  brought 
the  farmer  into  the  life  of  the  world.  Fluctuations  in 
the  value  of  money,  in  industrial  prosperity,  in  credit 
conditions,  in  transportation  facilities  or  rates,  all 
register  their  effects  promptly  and  sharply  in  his  busi- 
ness. He  has  become  a  business  man  who  must  watch 
business  conditions  as  well  as  the  conditions  of  produc- 
tion on  his  farm.  The  war  between  the  nations  of 
Europe  profoundly  affected  American  agriculture  long 
before  America  was  embroiled.  A  depression  in  Europe 
or  a  famine  in  India  will  soon  affect  agricultural 
prices  and  farm  incomes  in  America.  A  new  industrial 
process  which  uses  more  flax  than  the  old  method 
will  stimulate  flax  production,  and  may  therefore 
reduce  the  acreage  of  some  of  the  other  small  grains, 
thus  causing  their  prices  to  rise.  This  in  turn  may 
result  in  an  enlargement  of  grain  acreage  the  next 
year  and  a  decrease  in  grazing.  Meat  prices  may  thus 
eventually  be  affected  by  an  increased  use  of  flax.  This 
case  but  illustrates  the  intricate  relation  of  each  kind 
of  farming  to  the  whole  industrial  fabric  of  the' nation. 

The  increasing  complexity  of  the  agricultural  in- 
dustry in  this  new  stage  of  its  development  has  directed 
attention  to  the  subject  of  agricultural  economics, 
which  was  recognized  as  a  distinct  branch  in  economic 
study  only  about  fifteen  years  ago.1  Agricultural 

1  Professor  Henry  C.  Taylor's  Introduction  to  Agricultural  Economics, 
published  in  this  country  in  1905,  was  the  first  text  on  this  subject  to 
appear  in  the  English  language.  This  book,  rewritten  and  enlarged, 
appeared  in  1919  under  the  title,  Agricultural  Economics  (The 
Macmillan  Company). 


1 64  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

economics,  with  which  every  rural  teacher,  minister,  or 
other  rural  leader,  as  well  as  every  progressive  farmer, 
should  be  well  acquainted,  involves  a  discussion  of  the 
relations  of  land,  labor,  and  capital,  and  of  production 
and  distribution  in  rural  areas,  as  well  as  of  the  rela- 
tion of  agricultural  to  urban  economic  life. 

The  Agricultural  Population. — There  are  in  this 
country  three  economic  groups  in  agriculture :  farm 
owners,  tenants,  and  farm  laborers.  Fully  one  half 
of  the  farm  laborers  of  America  are  members  of  the 
families  of  the  farmers  on  whose  farms  they  work. 
They  are  not  wage  earners,  except  when  they  work 
from  time  to  time  for  neighbors  or  go  to  more  or  less 
distant  fields  during  the  harvest  season.  The  other 
half  of  the  farm  laborers  work  for  wages  on  other 
people's  farms.  A  large  proportion  of  these  are  young, 
and  many  of  them  eventually  leave  the  farm  and 
enter  other  kinds  of  work.  Others  work  intermit- 
tently on  the  farm  and  in  lumber  woods,  in  city  indus- 
tries, and  on  contracting  jobs.  The  harvest  seasons  in 
the  several  sections  of  the  country,  such  as  the  Cali- 
fornia fruit  harvests  or  the  Middle  West  grain  harvest, 
temporarily  attract  into  farm  employment  a  large 
number  of  persons  who  work  most  of  the  year  in  other 
kinds  of  employment  and  constitute  no  real  portion 
of  the  truly  agricultural  section  of  our  population. 

Confining  our  attention  to  those  persons — members 
of  farmers'  families,  both  owners  and  tenants,  and 
hired  laborers  on  the  farm — who  work  all  or  most  of 
the  year  on  farms,  it  is  important  that  we  notice  the 
different  individuals  and  groups  in  the  farming  industry. 
An  examination  of  any  farming  community  in  America 


Climbiog  tke  Agricultural 


The  way  up  this  ladder  must  be  kept  open,  and  the  farmer  must  be  en- 
couraged to  climb. 


165 


1 66  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

reveals  the  fact  that  there  are  some  persons  in  it  who 
never  have  attained  and  never  will  attain  farm  owner- 
ship. They  will  spend  their  lives  either  as  tenants  or  as 
farm  laborers.  It  also  reveals  that  many  of  those  who 
have  attained  farm  ownership  were  at  an  earlier  period  in 
their  lives  either  farm  laborers  or  tenants — oftentimes 
laborers,  then  tenants,  then  owners  of  mortgaged 
farms,  and  finally  complete  owners  of  farms.  Pro- 
fessor H.  C.  Taylor  has  graphically  described  this 
progress,  so  common  in  America,  from  the  status  of 
farm  laborer  to  tenant,  and  then  to  ownership,  as 
the  agricultural  ladder.  It  is  indeed  a  ladder,  and  one 
which  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Americans  have  climbed 
from  economic  dependence  to  economic  independence. 

But  not  all  who  start  as  farm  laborers  succeed  in 
climbing  the  ladder.  Many  do  not  try  to  climb. 
Others  who  try  are  unfit.  Others  are  unfortunate. 
Some,  like  many  of  the  negro  tenants  of  the  South, 
are  in  the  grip  of  creditors  who  unfairly  prevent  them 
from  achieving  independent  ownership.  As  a  result  of 
differences  in  ability,  in  self-control  and  industry,  in 
thrift,  in  ambition,  and,  to  a  less  extent,  in  opportu- 
nity, some  who  start  as  farm  laborers  remain  in  that 
class  or  leave  the  farm  entirely,  others  spend  their  lives 
as  renters,  and  others  become  farm  owners,  often  well- 
to-do.  A  considerable  number  of  farm  boys  who  work 
for  a  time  as  laborers  or  tenants  either  inherit  enough 
capital  to  get  a  start  toward  farm  ownership,  or  are 
given  a  start  by  their  parents,  but  many  get  their 
start  by  their  own  thrift  and  that  of  their  wives. 

The  distinction  between  farm  ownership  heavily 
burdened  by  debt  and  complete  farm  ownership  is 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  167 

a  significant  one.  It  is  the  distinction  between  di- 
vided and  single  ownership  of  the  farm  and  its  output. 
In  1910,  sixty- two  per  cent  of  the  farm  operators  in 
the  United  States  were  owners,  but  nearly  thirty-four 
per  cent  of  the  farm  operators  were  working  mortgaged 
farms.  In  other  words,  only  one  third  of  all  our 
farmers  owned  their  farms  free  of  debt.  From  1890 
to  1900,  the  number  of  mortgaged  farms  increased 
nearly  five  percent,  and  from  1900  to  1910,  it  increased 
nearly  three  per  cent.  From  1890  to  1910,  therefore,  the 
percentage  of  mortgaged  farms  was  growing,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  farming  as  a  business  greatly  improved 
during  this  time.  This  increase  in  farm  mortgages 
is  not  yet  alarming,  but  it  shows  a  trend  that,  taken 
in  connection  with  an  accompanying  growth  of  tenancy, 
should  be  closely  watched  that  its  full  significance 
may  be  ascertained. 

An  increase  in  the  number  of  farm  mortgages  and 
in  tenancy  does  not  necessarily  mean  an  increasing 
dependence  of  farmers  upon  other  people's  capital. 
Nor  does  it  necessarily  mean  that  money-lending 
capitalists  are  getting  control  of  the  farm  lands  of  the 
United  States,  and  reducing  the  farming  class  to  a 
state  of  dependence.  Tens  of  thousands  of  farm  mort- 
gages are  negotiated  each  year  in  the  United  States 
by  farmers  who  borrow  money  to  buy  more  land, 
machinery,  or  stock.  The  circulars  of  the  farm  mort- 
gage loan  companies  of  the  Upper  Mississippi  Valley, 
for  instance,  show  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  farm 
loans  which  these  companies  make  are  to  farmers  who 
are  borrowing  to  increase  the  size  of  their  operations 
just  as  city  business  men  borrow  to  enlarge  their 


i68  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

business.  Increases  in  tenancy  are  often  due  to  similar 
causes.  They  may  mean  that  young  farmers  are 
finding  increasing  difficulty  in  becoming  owners,  or  they 
may  mean,  as  they  do  in  many  portions  both  of  the 
northern  and  of  the  southern  agricultural  states,  an  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  young  men  who  are  emerg- 
ing from  the  farm  labor  class,  and  moving  toward  farm 
ownership. 

The  Effects  of  Tenancy  on  Agriculture. — An  increase 
in  farm  tenancy  may,  however,  produce  evil  results 
in  agricultural  production,  even  when  it  is  a  sign  of 
progress  in  the  individual.  Tenants,  especially  those 
who  remain  tenants,  are  apt  to  mine  out  the  soil 
fertility,  because  their  interest  is  in  the  immediate 
rather  than  the  eventual  production  of  the  farms  they 
are  working,  and  thus  they  may  cause  a  decline  in  the 
output  and  value  of  the  farm  property.  The  farm 
owner  is  vastly  more  interested  in  his  farm  and  in  his 
community  than  is  the  renter,  and  gives  his  attention 
to  long-time,  rather  than  to  short- time,  interests.  A 
tenant  must  be  an  unusually  earnest  man  to  take 
more  than  a  passing  interest  in  the  institutions  of  a 
community  in  which  he  knows  he  will  live  only  a  year 
or  two.  The  fact  that  one  denomination  alone  has 
abandoned  1500  rural  churches  in  one  state  is  at  least 
partly  explained  by  the  fact  that  nearly  half  the 
farmers  of  that  state  are  tenants.  Without  a  more 
settled  land  tenure,  it  is  difficult  for  schools,  churches, 
and  community  enterprises  in  general  to  adopt  definite 
policies  and  work  toward  their  achievement.  A  perma- 
nent and  numerous  tenant  class  ought  to  be  avoided  by 
the  United  States,  not  only  because  it  impedes  agricul- 


170  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

tural  efficiency  and  community  progress,  but  because 
the  separation  into  classes  produces  jealousies  and 
animosities  between  owners,  tenants,  and  laborers. 
It  is  absentee  ownership  and  tenancy  which  in  large 
measure  explain  the  agricultural  backwardness  of  many 
European  peoples. 

America,  and  particularly  our  farm  people,  must 
see  to  it  that  the  rungs  on  the  agricultural  ladder 
leading  from  the  status  of  farm  laborer  to  tenant  and 
to  ownership  are  not  too  far  apart.  If  the  way  up 
this  ladder  is  obstructed  at  any  place,  the  number  of 
farm  laborers  and  tenants  increases  unduly  and  owner- 
ship declines.  As  this  country  grows  older,  and  as  the 
population  increases  and  the  free  land  disappears,  the 
price  of  land  will  naturally  rise,  and  it  will  become 
more  and  more  difficult  for  the  man  who  starts  with 
nothing  but  his  hands  to  become  a  farm  owner.  Ten- 
ants are  recruited  almost  entirely  from  the  laboring 
class ;  they  are  therefore  usually  handicapped  by 
initial  lack  of  capital,  and  it  is  already  becoming  in- 
creasingly difficult  for  a  farm  laborer  to  become  a 
tenant,  as  more  money  is  needed  to  equip  a  farm  for 
successful  operation  under  present  conditions. 

It  is  essential  that  the  lease  system  be  standardized 
and  improved.  There  are  several  reasons  for  this.  A 
better  lease  system  will  lengthen  the  time  of  residence  of 
tenants  in  one  place  and  they  will  thus  be  encouraged  to 
make  improvements  and  forward-looking  calculations. 
Even  with  the  very  best  system  of  land  tenure,  we 
must  always  have  a  great  many  tenants.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  thirty  per  cent  of  the  farmers  of  this  coun- 
try are  tenants.  This  is  normal  in  an  old  community. 


172  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

Many  of  the  tenants  are  children  or  relatives  to  whom 
the  farms  will  ultimately  pass  ;  and  other  tenants  are 
climbing  the  agricultural  ladder,  as  stated.  In  the  case 
of  those  who  will  always  need  direction  and  coopera- 
tion, tenancy  will  prove  more  satisfactory  than  in- 
dependent ownership.  We  cannot  enter  into  the  com- 
plex aspect  of  tenancy  at  this  time.  It  is  obvious,  how- 
ever, that  since  so  large  a  percentage  of  the  land  must 
be  occupied  by  tenants,  special  emphasis  should  be 
laid  upon  all  measures  which  tend  to  secure  the  kind 
of  tenancy  that  is  best  from  the  social  and  economic 
point  of  view,  and  to  establish  conditions  that  will 
enable  those  who  have  the  capacity  for  it  to  climb 
the  agricultural  ladder. 

It  is  of  course  true  that  we  do  not  have  such  a  well- 
defined  class  of  landed  proprietors  as  in  Great  Britain 
and  Mexico.  Our  population,  owing  to  continual 
immigration  and  to  our  freedom  to  move  about  and 
engage  in  whatever  calling  we  may  desire,  is  too  shift- 
ing to  permit  the  forming  of  a  landed  class.  Except  pos- 
sibly in  the  case  of  estates  owned  by  city  capitalists,  and 
in  some  special  kinds  of  farming,  there  is,  as  yet,  no 
marked  concentration  of  farm  ownership  in  this  country. 
The  size  of  farms  generally  is  decreasing.  In  1850,  the 
average  size  of  farms  in  the  United  States  was  210  acres  ; 
in  1910  it  was  138.1  acres.  This  matter  of  size  is  influ- 
enced largely  by  the  length  of  time  the  country  has  been 
settled,  and  by  the  kind  of  farming  carried  on  in  the 
different  sections.  Different  parts  of  the  United  States 
show  a  wide  variation  as  to  the  size  of  farms. 

Rural  Credits.  —  The  chief  remedy  for  protracted 
tenancy  and  mortgage  indebtedness  and  the  one  that 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  173 

will  most  facilitate  the  climbing  of  the  agricultural 
ladder,  is  a  credit  system  adequate  to  the  needs  of 
American  farmers  and  adapted  to  American  social 
and  economic  conditions.  Such  a  system  will 
include  both  short-time,  small-amount,  low-rate  credit, 
and  long-time,  large-amount,  low-rate  credit.  A  short- 
time,  low-rate  credit  system,  managed  by  the  govern- 
ment through  the  post  office,  would  save  many 
crops  and  meet  many  emergencies.  The  Federal  Farm 
Loan  Act,  passed  on  July  17,  1916,  and  signed  by  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  is  our  first  attempt  to  provide  national 
credit  for  the  farmer.  The  act  operates  through  a 
Federal  Farm  Loan  Board  of  five  members  and  pro- 
vides for  twelve  Federal  Farm  Land  Banks,  located 
in  twelve  districts  covering  the  entire  nation.  Farmers 
wishing  to  obtain  loans  must  form  loan  associations 
through  which  they  can  obtain  these  loans  from  the 
Federal  Banks.  Loans  upon  first  mortgages  are  made 
to  farmers  or  prospective  farmers  who  apply  through 
these  associations,  to  the  amount  of  fifty  per  cent 
of  the  appraised  value  of  the  land,  irrespective  of 
improvements,  and  twenty  per  cent  of  the  value  of 
the  improvements.  The  loan  to  each  borrower  may 
not  be  less  than  $100  nor  more  than  $10,000.  But 
in  order  to  secure  a  loan  the  farmer  must  subscribe 
for  one  five-dollar  share  of  stock  in  the  association 
for  each  $100  borrowed,  so  that  the  actual  maximum 
of  a  loan  under  this  act  is  $9500.  The  time  for  which 
loans  may  be  made  is  not  less  than  five  years  nor  more 
than  forty  years.  The  rate  of  interest  is  nominally 
five  per  cent,  although  the  expenses  incurred  in  making 
the  loan  increase  the  rate  a  little.  The  interest  rate 


174  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

plus  these  additional  expenses  must  not  exceed  six 
per  cent  per  annum. 

One  of  the  finest  features  of  this  act  is  the  provision 
that  every  mortgage  shall  contain  an  agreement 
providing  for  the  payment  of  the  loan  on  an  amor- 
tization plan  by  means  of  a  fixed  number  of  annual 
or  semiannual  installments  sufficient  to  cover  the 
interest  rate,  the  charge  for  administration  and  profits, 
and  such  amounts  to  be  applied  on  the  principal  as  will 
extinguish  the  debt  within  a  period  to  be  agreed 
upon.  After  five  years  from  the  date  of  the  loan, 
additional  payments  may  be  made  on  any  interest 
date,  so  that  the  debt  may  be  paid  prior  to  the  date 
when  payment  is  due  —  an  advantage  to  the  farmer 
which  is  lacking  in  any  other  type  of  mortgage  loan. 

This  act  is  a  step  in  the  right  direction  but  it  does 
not  meet  the  needs  of  all  our  farm  people.  It  serves 
those  who  need  credit  the  least,  and  fails  to  aid  the  ten- 
ant and  the  farm  owner  just  starting  with  small  means, 
because  it  is  difficult  for  them  to  become  members  of 
a  loan  association.  The  farmers  should  agitate  this  issue 
of  adequate  rural  credit  until  the  present  Farm  Loan 
Act  is  properly  amended  to  provide  personal  credit 
and  small-amount,  short-time  loans.  Thousands  of 
farm  families  spend  their  entire  lives  paying  off  mort- 
gages, never  knowing  what  normal  life  is  on  a  farm. 
If  a  farmer  could  buy  a  farm,  build  a  comfortable 
dwelling  and  outbuildings,  equip  it  with  implements, 
machinery,  and  live  stock,  and  be  sure  that  he  would 
have  forty  years  in  which  to  pay  for  it,  he  could  mean- 
while raise  his  family  properly  in  peace  of  mind  and 
get  the  best  out  of  life.  There  can  be  no  doubt 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES      175 

whatever  that  adequate  rural  credit  will  go  a  very  long 
way  toward  solving  the  problems  of  the  farmer. 

Other  means  of  helping  to  make  farm  ownership  pos- 
sible to  more  farmers  have  been  advocated.  It  has  been 
claimed  that  a  progressive  land  tax  rising  in  rate  as  the 
size  of  the  holding  increased  would  keep  land  out  of  the 
control  of  the  few  and  thus  make  it  more  obtainable  to  the 
many.  Moreover,  such  a  tax  might  keep  farms  from 
becoming  unnecessarily  large,  and  would  tend  to  encour- 
age more  intensive  and  scientific  farming.  On  the  other 
hand,  large  holdings  are  essential  to  some  kinds  of  farm- 
ing, and  no  taxation  system  should  make  such  holdings 
impossible.  Progressive  taxation  of  land  values  is  one 
of  many  current  problems  which  need  thorough  investi- 
gation and  which  should  be  carefully  discussed  before 
being  adopted.  Our  history  is  full  of  warnings  against 
rash  and  ill-considered  legislation.  In  the  end,  over- 
hasty  legislation  produces  reactions  and  delays  real  prog- 
ress. Minor  improvements  in  the  present  system  of  land 
registration  are  undoubtedly  required,  and  a  system  pre- 
venting delays  in  real  estate  transfers  and  lowering  the 
cost  of  securing  a  deed  should  be  devised. 

Stimulating  Productive  Efficiency.  —  We  have  so 
far  discussed  the  status  of  agricultural  labor,  the 
relation  of  the  farmer  to  the  land  he  tills,  and  the  ways 
in  which  he  can  secure  his  capital.  Methods  of  pro- 
duction, or  of  tillage  and  farm  management,  constitute 
the  next  problem  of  agricultural  economy  to  be  con- 
sidered. Scientific  farming  and  better  household 
arrangements  are  the  aims  of  the  school  instruction 
in  agriculture  and  domestic  arts  discussed  in  previ- 
ous chapters.  There  are,  however,  two  special  agencies 


176  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

for  stimulating  productive  efficiency  which  at  this 
point  demand  consideration. 

Organized  federal  aid  for  agriculture  was  begun  on 
May  15,  1862,  when  Congress  created  a  Department 
of  Agriculture  as  a  subdivision  or  bureau  of  the  De- 
partment of  the  Interior.  On  February  9,  1889, 
President  Cleveland  signed  an  act  raising  the  Depart- 
ment to  the  first  rank  in  the  executive  civil  service 
and  giving  its  administrative  officer  a  seat  in  the  Pres- 
ident's Cabinet.  The  history  of  federal  aid  to  agri- 
cultural education  in  this  country  shows  three  distinct 
periods,  each  of  which  centers  around  one  or  more 
Congressional  Acts. 

The  first  was  the  period  of  formation,  beginning 
with  the  Morrill  Act,  signed  by  President  Lincoln  in 
1862.  This  was  the  result  of  the  untiring  effort  of 
Senator  Justin  L.  Morrill  of  Vermont,  since  known  as 
the  Father  of  the  Land  Grant  Colleges.  During  the 
throes  of  the  Civil  War,  when  it  was  uncertain  whether 
or  not  the  nation  would  survive,  Senator  Morrill 
took  the  stand  that  it  would  survive,  and  that  in  ic; 
survival,  it  would  depend  upon  agriculture  for  wealth 
and  progress.  The  act  therefore  provided  that  the 
federal  government  should  grant  a  portion  of  its  public 
lands  for  the  establishment  of  agricultural  colleges  in 
all  the  states.  In  the  older  states,  there  were  no 
public  lands,  but  each  of  these  states  was  given  a  cer- 
tain number  of  acres  of  Western  land,  in  proportion  to 
the  number  of  representatives  and  senators  it  had  in 
Congress.  Thus  the  old  states,  such  as  New  York  and 
Massachusetts,  had  the  same  opportunity  to  have  the 
benefit  of  this  grant  as  the  territories  and  new  states 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  177 

where  the  lands  were  located.  This  land  was  to  be  sold 
and  the  interest  of  five  per  cent  on  the  proceeds  was  to 
be  used  as  a  perpetual  endowment  for  an  agricultural 
college  in  each  state.  Despite  the  fact  that  a  number 
of  states  squandered  their  grants,  selling  the  land  in 
some  instances  for  less  than  fifty  cents  per  acre,  the 
purpose  for  which  the  grants  were  made  has  been 
realized.  In  every  state  and  territory  of  the  Union 
except  Alaska  there  is  an  agricultural  college  endowed, 
partially  or  fully,  by  the  proceeds  of  the  original 
grant.  This  was  our  first  national  effort  to  promote 
agricultural  education.  Unfortunately,  we  had  no 
organized  material  on  agricultural  education  and  no 
teachers  equipped  for  the  work,  and  consequently  the 
science  taught  at  first  had  little  agricultural  flavor. 
Further  acts  passed  in  1890  and  in  1907  provided  sub- 
stantial annual  subsidies  to  colleges  maintained  in 
accordance  with  the  first  Morrill  Act. 

The  second  period  was  one  of  constructive  develop- 
ment and  research,  beginning  with  the  Hatch  Act  of 
1887,  which  was  signed  by  President  Cleveland.  This 
Act  provided  experiment  stations  in  connection  with 
the  agricultural  colleges.  This  was  a  great  forward 
movement  in  agricultural  research  and  training,  as 
these  stations  gathered  material  for  a  solid  teaching 
basis.  The  results  of  the  research  done  by  the  experiment 
stations  were  disseminated  by  government  bulletins, 
and  careful  scientific  work  in  agriculture  was  now  made 
possible.  In  1906  the  second  Experiment  Station 
Act,  or  the  Adams  Act,  duplicated  the  annual  appro- 
priation for  experiment  stations  given  to  each  state 
under  the  Hatch  Act. 


178  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

The  third  period,  culminating  in  the  Smith-Lever 
Act  and  the  Smith-Hughes  Act,  is  one  of  dissemination 
of  information.  The  Smith-Lever  Act,  signed  by 
President  Wilson  in  1914,  provides  for  cooperative 
agricultural  extension  work  by  the  state  agricultural 
colleges  and  the  United  States  Department  of  Agri- 
culture. Its  chief  purpose  is  to  "aid  in  diffusing 
practical  information  on  subjects  relating  to  agriculture 
and  home  economics,"  and  it  aims  to  give  practical 
instruction  in  agriculture  and  home  economics  to 
persons  living  in  the  rural  districts  but  not  attending 
the  agricultural  colleges.  This  is  the  first  time  that 
the  government  has  recognized  home  economics  in  its 
acts  of  appropriation.  The  Smith-Lever  Act  includes, 
therefore,  all  the  people,  women  as  well  as  men. 

The  Smith-Hughes  Vocational  Education  Act,  signed 
by  President  Wilson  in  1916,  is  also  one  of  dissemination. 
It  provides  an  appropriation  for  the  purpose  of  having 
the  federal  government  cooperate  with  that  of  the  states 
in  paying  the  salaries  of  teachers,  supervisors,  and  di- 
rectors of  agricultural  subjects  ;  and  of  teachers  of  trade, 
home  economics,  and  industrial  subjects.  It  creates  also 
a  Federal  Board  of  Vocational  Education  to  administer 
the  provisions  of  the  Act ;  to  make  studies,  investiga- 
tions, and  reports  ;  to  aid  in  the  organization  and  con- 
duct of  vocational  education  ;  and  to  cooperate  with  state 
boards  of  education  in  carrying  out  the  provisions  of 
this  law.  It  includes  both  the  city  and  the  rural 
district,  and  the  day,  evening,  and  continuation  schools. 
The  appropriation  for  agricultural  education  is  to  be 
allotted  to  the  states  in  the  proportion  which  their 
rural  population  bears  to  the  total  rural  population  in 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC   FORCES  179 

the  United  States,  not  including  outlying  possessions. 
This  is  the  broadest  and  most  generous  of  all  the  federal 
education  acts  yet  passed  in  the  interests  of  industrial 
and  agricultural  people. 

The  essential  difference  between  these  two  Acts  is 
that  the  Smith-Lever  Act  expends  federal  money 
through  the  agricultural  colleges  and  experiment 
stations  for  agricultural  extension  work.  The  Smith- 
Hughes  Act  expends  federal  money  through  a  state 
board  for  the  purpose  of  vocational  education  carried 
on  by  both  day  and  evening  schools.  The  agencies 
through  which  the  federal  government  aids  agricul- 
tural education  under  these  acts  are  the  state  agricul- 
tural colleges,  experiment  stations,  extension  centers,  and 
those  secondary  schools  teaching  agriculture.  Any  of 
these  agencies  not  in  receipt  of  federal  aid  are  missing 
assistance  that  could  materially  widen  their  scope  and 
heighten  their  efficiency. 

The  states,  too,  are  coming  to  a  fuller  realization 
of  their  duty  to  rural  people  and,  consequently,  are 
becoming  more  generous  in  their  aid  to  rural  interests. 
Agricultural  colleges  and  experiment  stations  are  or- 
ganized under  state  laws  and  receive  the  largest  share 
of  their  financial  support  from  the  state.  The  college 
of  agriculture  stands  for  the  whole  range  of  country  life 
in  both  its  productive  and  its  social  phases.  It  should 
therefore  be  an  organic  part  of  the  state  system  of 
agricultural  education,  and  while  it  should  not  try  to 
administer  the  system,  it  should  be  intimately  associ- 
ated with  the  controlling  factors.  1 1  should  help  in  secur- 
ing better  farm  practice,  organize  better  farm  business, 
and  develop  a  better  farm  life.  Through  the  support 


i8o  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

of  the  county  agricultural  agents,  through  state  normal 
schools  for  the  training  of  rural  teachers,  through 
providing  county  supervisory  teachers  and  assistants  to 
county  superintendents,  and  finally  through  a  public  li- 
brary commission  giving  some  degree  of  library  service  to 
rural  districts  as  well  as  to  towns  and  cities,  many  states 
are  directly  aiding  the  cause  of  agricultural  efficiency. 

The  county  farm  bureaus  and  the  county  agri- 
cultural agents  are  becoming*  a  very  positive  force 
for  agricultural  development.  They  are  supported 
jointly  by  the  federal,  state,  and  county  governments. 
In  1919,  thirty-eight  county  agricultural  agents  in 
Wisconsin  made  trips  to  13,766  farms,  helped  114 
farmers'  organizations,  and  held  1539  meetings,  which 
were  attended  by  a  total  of  1 1 6,942  persons.  They  spent 
sixty-two  per  cent  of  their  time  in  the  field.  In  addition 
to  this  these  agents  were  consulted  61,466  times  during 
the  year  by  farmers,  and  wrote  1842  articles  on  farm 
matters  for  the  press. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  government  aid  as 
an  agency  in  the  development  of  rural  life,  several 
things  must  be  emphasized.  The  rural  life  problem 
affects  the  entire  nation,  and  not  the  individual  state 
alone.  For  this  reason,  state  aid  should  be  given  to 
all  those  counties  within  the  state,  and  federal  aid 
should  be  given  to  all  those  states  that  have  unusual 
burdens  or  adverse  conditions.  It  is  of  national  con- 
cern that  some  states  can  keep  their  rural  schools  in 
session  only  six  months  in  a  year.  If  it  is  good  for  chil- 
dren in  one  state  to  have  nine  months  of  schooling  each 
year,  it  is  certainly  good  for  children  in  the  other  states. 
Backward  states  and  counties  should  be  helped  to  higher 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  181 

standards  as  rapidly  as  is  consistent  with  sound  de- 
velopment. Another  point  to  remember  is  the  neces- 
sity for  efficient  use  of  all  money  appropriated  for  rural 
life  development.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  those 
in  charge  of  the  funds  appropriated  for  this  purpose 
are  doing  good  and  earnest  work.  There  are,  however, 
ways  in  which  this  work  could  be  brought  more  for- 
cibly to  rural  people  and  by  which  much  more  en- 
thusiasm could  be  created.  These  methods  must  be 
brought  to  the  attention  of  administrative  agents 
everywhere  and  incorporated  into  our  scheme  for  rural 
progress.  Finally,  all  rural  social  workers  must  cooper- 
ate to  the  fullest  degree.  The  rural  physician,  attorney, 
teacher,  preacher,  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
and  Young  Women's  Christian  Association  secretaries, 
and  county  agricultural  agents  should  be  acquainted 
with  each  other,  should  know  what  the  government 
as  a  whole  and  what  each  individual  is  trying  to  do, 
and  should  unite  their  forces  to  secure  the  most  effec- 
tive use  of  state  and  federal  assistance  in  the  bet- 
terment of  their  community. 

Labor-saving  Devices.  —  Intelligent  ambition,  scien- 
tific methods,  and  up-to-date  equipment  are  the  es- 
sentials for  productive  farm  efficiency.  There  are  a 
number  of  reasons  why  farmers  are  annually  coming 
to  use  more  and  better  labor-saving  devices.  The 
use  of  machinery  on  a  modern  farm  is  profitable  from 
a  financial  standpoint  in  that  it  saves  both  time  and 
labor  in  farm  operations.  As  farm  laborers  become 
less  available,  farmers  are  obliged  to  use  more  and  more 
machinery.  This  will  result  in  the  farmers'  becoming 
more  skillful  and  more  intelligent,  and  in  their  having 


182  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

more  time  and  energy,  as  well  as  more  inclination, 
for  mental  cultivation  and  social  diversion.  If  a 
fair  price  for  farm  products  accompanies  this  extended 
use  of  machinery,  farmers  will  thus  achieve  a  large 
step  in  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

Conditions  of  modern  agriculture  have  compelled 
the  farm  men,  for  the  past  generation  or  more,  to 
adopt  the  use  of  machinery.  The  women  of  the  farm 
home  are  just  now  beginning  to  come  into  their  own 
in  the  employment  of  time-saving  and  labor-saving 
devices.  The  invention  of  such  devices  for  the  home 
came  a  little  later  than  that  for  the  farm.  But 
many  inventions,  such  as  carpet  sweepers,  wheel 
trays,  fireless  cookers,  gasoline  stoves,  iceless  refrig- 
erators, bread  mixers,  charcoal  irons,  power  churns 
and  washing  machines,  gas  or  electric  lighting,  power 
dynamos,  in-door  water  systems,  and  screen  doors 
and  windows  have  now  become  available  for  the  farm 
home  as  well  as  for  the  home  in  the  city,  and  they 
make  the  farm  a  far  more  attractive  place  than  it 
was  formerly.  Every  inducement  should  be  used  to 
get  farm  people  to  make  their  homes  as  comfortable 
and  pleasant  as  possible,  and  to  emancipate  them- 
selves from  the  perpetual  tyranny  of  poorly  planned, 
hand-done  work  both  in  the  house  and  on  the  farm. 

Rural  Cooperation. — The  division  of  labor,  which  has 
taken  place  in  the  manufacturing  industries  in  recent 
years  to  so  great  an  extent  that  it  has  become  the 
source  of  new  human  problems,  has  not  affected  farm 
life  in  any  comparable  way.  Indeed,  it  has  yet  to  be 
developed  to  its  full  usefulness  in  the  agricultural 
occupations.  Because  every  farmer  has  had  to  attend 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  183 

to  all  the  various  kinds  of  business  connected  with  farm 
work,  including  producing,  buying,  and  selling,  he  has 
not  attained  the  skill  in  some  of  these  things  which  he 
needs  to  attain.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  farmer 
produce  a  bumper  crop.  His  entire  crop  may  go  to 
waste  for  lack  of  proper  marketing  facilities. 

Cooperation  in  agriculture  is  an  application  of  the 
theory  of  division  of  labor.  In  the  early  days,  every  farm 
woman  separated  the  cream  from  the  milk,  churned 
it,  and  took  the  butter  to  market  and  sold  it  for  whatever 
price  the  grocer  in  the  small  town  would  pay.  Now,  in 
dairy  districts,  the  whole  milk  is  often  carried  to  a 
cooperative  creamery,  and  there  separated,  churned 
and  worked  into  butter,  and  sold  in  distant  markets 
where  prices  are  better  than  could  be  obtained  from  the 
local  dealers.  In  addition  to  saving  much  labor  on  the 
individual  farms,  the  improved  conditions  of  assured 
cleanliness,  the  possibilities  of  advertising  a  product 
to  extend  its  market,  and  the  increase  in  production, 
are  large  factors  in  favor  of  cooperative  effort  in  farming 
communities.  The  farmers  produce  the  milk;  the 
butter  maker  at  the  creamery  does  all  the  work  formerly 
done  in  a  dozen  or  a  score  of  homes;  a  board  of 
directors  and  a  business  manager,  often  chosen  from 
among  the  stockholders  of  the  creamery,  attend  to 
the  marketing  of  the  product  and  to  other  related 
business  matters. 

Rural  cooperative  associations  are  of  four  main 
types,  each  denned  by  its  purpose ;  namely  production, 
sale,  purchase,  and  service.  These  may  be  illustrated 
by  (i)  a  cooperative  association  which  owns  a  thresh- 
ing machine,  tractor,  or  other  piece  of  expensive  machin- 


184  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

ery  for  use  in  accelerating  production  ;  (2)  one  which 
is  interested  mainly  in  selling  produce  from  the  several 
farms,  as  a  live  stock  shipping  association ;  (3)  one 
in  which  the  members  select  one  of  their  number  to 
purchase  material  which  requires  expert  judgment,  as, 
for  instance,  a  cattle  breeders'  association,  the  members 
of  which  all  raise  a  special  kind  of  cattle  ;  or  a  mer- 
cantile association,  the  members  of  which  receive 
a  discount  from  the  retail  price  of  all  goods  bought ; 
(4)  a  company  interested  in  some  kind  of  rural 
service,  as  a  telephone  company.  Two  or  more  of 
these  types  may  be  combined  within  the  same  organ- 
ization, and  this  is  usually  the  case  with  a  cooperative 
creamery  or  cheese  factory,  where  goods  are  both 
produced  and  sold ;  or  with  such  a  company  as  a 
live  stock  association  which  buys  the  stock  for  the 
individual  farmers  and  sells  for  them. 

Cooperation  of  any  kind  implies  in  the  first  place 
a  cooperative  man,  one  who  is  willing  to  work  with 
others  for  the  good  of  all,  and  to  sacrifice  his  own 
gain  if  the  good  of  the  group  may  be  furthered  thereby  ; 
one  who  can  see  that  in  the  long  run,  his  own  welfare 
will  be  advanced  if  the  community  in  which  he  lives 
comes  up  to  as  high  a  standard  as  the  majority  are 
capable  of  attaining,  but  at  the  same  time  loves  his 
neighbors  enough  to  seek  their  welfare  along  with 
his  own.  The  commercial  attitude  is  good  as  far 
as  it  goes,  but  in  most  cases  there  must  be  a  mutual 
confidence  and  esteem  in  the  group  or  they  will  not  hold 
together.  Distrust  of  one  another  will  disrupt  a 
group  quicker  than  anything  else,  and  cooperation 
should  not  be  undertaken  where  the  feeling  of  trust  is 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  185 

lacking.  Questions  of  race  prejudice,  religion,  and 
politics  often  interfere  with  what  would  otherwise  be  a 
successful  cooperative  organization.  Some  men  cannot 
grant  that  a  man  who  has  sprung  from  a  different 
nationality  than  their  own,  or  who  holds  different  views 
from  theirs  in  religion  or  politics,  can  possibly  be 
right  about  anything.  Accordingly,  these  associations 
thrive  best  in  a  well-developed  community  where 
neighbors  have  had  a  chance  to  know  each  other  over 
a  period  of  years  and  so  have  got  rid  of  their  prejudices 
through  personal  contact.  On  the  other  hand,  co- 
operation in  business  often  leads  to  a  growing  esteem, 
or  at  least  a  toleration,  in  other  matters. 

But  business  dealings  between  friends  are  frequently 
the  source  of  bitter  feelings  and  misunderstandings, 
especially  if  there  has  been  only  an  implied  under- 
standing in  the  first  instance.  This  characteristic  of 
human  nature  makes  it  essential  that  a  cooperative 
association  should  employ  from  the  beginning  business- 
like methods  and  an  adequate  system  of  bookkeeping. 
Responsibility  in  an  association  of  this  kind  is  diffused, 
and  often  everybody  looks  to  somebody  else  to  see  that 
things  go  right.  Even  the  board  of  directors  does  not 
take  so  much  interest  as  it  would  in  the  case  of  a 
corporation,  for  the  investment  is  relatively  small. 
Some  of  the  difficulty  will  be  overcome  if  definite 
parts  of  the  responsibility  are  assigned  to  certain 
members,  with  an  agreed  compensation  for  the  amount 
of  time  expended,  either  in  looking  after  the  business 
of  the  concern  or  in  keeping  the  books.  Indeed, 
the  question  of  leadership  is  of  the  utmost  importance, 
and  if  the  cooperative  association  is  doing  business  on 


J86  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

a  large  enough  scale,  a  competent  manager  should  be 
employed,  and  should  be  paid  a  proper  salary. 
Farmers  must  learn  that  they  are  business  men,  and 
like  successful  business  men,  they  must  pay  a  man 
who  serves  them  what  he  is  worth.  We  cannot  get 
something  for  nothing,  and  the  highest  priced  man  is 
often  the  cheapest  in  the  long  run. 

Having  then  the  right  type  of  men,  the  right  kind 
of  community,  and  the  right  kind  of  leadership, 
what  next  is  necessary  to  successful  cooperation? 
Money,  in  the  form  of  capital.  Too  little  capital  to 
carry  the  business  over  a  dull  period  has  often  been  a 
cause  of  failure  of  cooperative  associations  as  well  as 
of  individuals  and  corporations.  Two  chief  methods 
have  been  used  to  secure  money  needed  by  farmers' 
cooperative  associations  ;  first,  borrowing,  much  as  an 
ordinary  corporation  would  borrow  its  capital,  by  the 
issuance  of  stocks ;  second,  the  payment  by  each  mem- 
ber of  the  association  of  a  specified  sum,  usually  from  ten 
to  a  hundred  dollars,  which  entitles  him  to  membership 
and  all  the  privileges  of  the  association.  If  a  farmer 
does  not  have  the  ready  money,  he  can  usually  give  a 
note  for  it,  to  be  paid  either  in  a  lump  sum  or  by  with- 
holding a  part  of  the  proceeds  due  him.  It  is  much 
better  for  farmers'  organizations  to  run  their  business 
without  depending  too  much  on  their  ability  to  borrow 
money,  though  they  are  usually  able  to  borrow  when 
necessary. 

The  profits  of  a  cooperative  organization  come  from 
the  savings  made  in  purchasing,  or  the  higher  price 
received  in  selling,  or,  in  other  cases,  from  the  benefit 
which  comes  from  having  at  command  a  machine  or  a 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  187 

kind  of  service  which  would  not  be  possible  for  an  in- 
dividual farmer  working  alone.1 

Economic  cooperation  is  never  to  be  sought  as  an 
end  in  itself,  but  only  as  a  means  to  an  end.  It  grows 
out  of  the  felt  needs  of  the  community,  and  operates 
only  so  far  as  it  can  supply  these  needs.  It  might  be 
used  more  frequently  than  it  is,  but  it  cannot  be  thrust 
upon  a  people.  It  grows  out  of  economic  conditions, 
rather  than  out  of  the  fact  that  it  is  an  attractive 
principle  in  the  abstract.  For  this  reason  farmers 
should  beware  of  promoters  who  are  interested  in  them 
only  to  the  extent  of  getting  easy  money  out  of  com- 
missions for  selling  stock  and  equipment.  In  the 
creamery  business,  the  promoters  have  reaped  a  rich 
harvest  over  a  long  period  of  years.  There  is  no  reason 
why  commissions  should  be  paid  for  such  organizing 
when  there  are  many  men,  loyal  to  the  cause  of  agri- 
cultural cooperation,  who  are  doing  such  work  in  the 
spirit  of  service.  It  is  well  that  farmers  place  the 
organization  of  their  cooperative  enterprises  in  the 
hands  of  one  of  their  number  or  of  some  competent 
professor  in  their  state  agricultural  college,  or  of  a 
government  or  county  agricultural  agent. 

The  most  successful  cooperation  will  tend  to  use 
existing  agencies  as  far  as  may.  be,  instead  of  trying 
to  overturn  the  existing  order  of  society.  Many 
people  blame  the  middlemen  for  present-day  high 
prices ;  yet  these  same  middlemen  are  a  response 
to  a  real  need  in  the  process  of  industrial  evolution. 

1  For  a  statement  of  methods  of  organizing,  and  of  dividing  the 
profits,  see  "Agricultural  Cooperation,"  by  Professor  B.  H.  Hibbard, 
Bulletin  238,  University  of  Wisconsin,  pp.  17  ff. 


1 88  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

They  have  furnished  the  place  of  exchange  between 
the  producers  of  raw  material  and  the  factories,  and 
again  between  the  factories  and  the  consumers.  A  few 
of  them  may  be  used  very  successfully  in  connection 
with  the  cooperative  association,  instead  of  being 
entirely  displaced.  Their  displacement  would  cause 
much  unnecessary  unemployment  and  maladjustment. 
The  Citrus  Fruit  Growers  of  California  have  shown 
what  may  be  accomplished  by  means  of  working  with 
the  middlemen. 

The  advantages  of  cooperation  are  many.  They 
may  be  stated  briefly.  It  often  results  in  the  standard- 
ization and  the  improvement  of  the  quality  of  products. 
This,  in  turn,  means  higher  prices  for  the  farmer. 
The  difference  between  a  good  and  a  poor  quality  is 
often  the  difference  between  profit  and  loss.  A  co- 
operative company  can  afford  to  advertise  and  so 
extend  the  boundary  of  its  markets  and  the  demand 
for  its  goods.  Marketing  methods  are  made  more 
efficient,  and  so  loss  through  inefficient  marketing  is 
overcome.  Cooperation  educates  the  farmers  along 
business  lines,  and  also  in  the  social  spirit.  It  is  not 
strange  that  cooperation  is  becoming  a  motive  force 
in  rural  and  national  life. 

One  great  weakness  of  a  cooperative  company  in 
America  is  its  limitation  to  one  community  when  a 
wider  scope  of  activity  would  be  more  profitable.  A 
group  of  unfederated  companies  is  almost  sure  to 
compete  within  itself.  Local  companies  frequently 
invade  one  another's  territory  for  trade  and  compete 
with  each  other  in  selling.  When  they  are  dealing 
alone,  they  may  be  discriminated  against  or  boycotted 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  189 

by  certain  manufacturers ;  but  if  they  are  dealing  as  a 
federation  they  can  break  down  this  discrimination  and 
secure  equitable  treatment.  Federation  makes  pos- 
sible for  farmers  the  collective  bargaining  so  much 
talked  about  by  workers  in  other  industries.  The 
largest  and  best  known  examples  of  state  federations 
of  agricultural  producers  in  America  are  the  Cali- 
fornia Fruit  Growers'  Exchange  and  the  Wisconsin 
Cheese  Producers'  Federation,  each  of  which  is  made 
up  of  local  and  district  organizations.  The  largest 
and  most  successful  marketing  union  at  the  present 
time  is  the  company  made  up  of  local  cooperative 
grain  companies  in  about  ten  of  our  leading  corn  and 
wheat  producing  states.  In  this  latter  instance,  the 
actual  marketing  is  done  by  each  local  company  as 
best  it  can,  but  all  the  local  companies  are  organized 
into  an  association  for  promoting  the  interests  of  the 
grain  producing  industry.  The  main  purpose  of  such 
a  federation  is  by  no  means  an  attack  upon  legitimate 
middlemen,  but  rather  the  introduction  of  intelligent 
business  methods  into  the  work  of  buying  and  selling 
farm  products,  just  as  such  methods  have  been 
used  in  other  great  industries  for  the  last  half 
century. 

Agricultural  cooperation  has  met  with  great  success 
in  European  countries,  the  best  examples  being  found 
in  Denmark,  Holland,  Ireland,  Belgium,  Germany, 
and  Italy.  The  unusual  success  of  cooperation  in 
these  countries  is  due  in  part  to  the  stability  of  their 
populations  and  in  part  to  their  organization  and 
federation.  The  local  associations  federate  into  dis- 
trict units,  and  the  district  units,  in  turn,  federate  into 


THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

a  national  organization  ;    thus  all  units  work  together 
as  an  entirety. 

All  rural  social  workers,  including  teachers  and 
pastors,  ought  to  acquaint  themselves  with  the  efforts 
of  farmers  to  increase  and  improve  production  and 
eliminate  waste  in  the  present  system  of  distributing 
and  marketing  farm  products.  These  matters  un- 
doubtedly call  for  the  interest  and  enthusiasm  of  rural 
educators,  because  agricultural  prosperity  means  a 
more  satisfying  life  for  all  the  men  and  women  on  our 
American  farms. 

Good  Roads  and  Other  Means  of  Communication.  - 
Farmers  can  achieve  land  ownership,  secure  a  satis- 
factory labor  supply,  achieve  productive  efficiency 
and  organize  for  profitable  buying  and  selling;  but 
supplies  and  products  cannot  travel  to  and  from  the 
farm  without  good  roads  and  available  transportation 
facilities.  The  value  of  good  roads  has  been  recog- 
nized practically  ever  since  civilization  began.  Com- 
merce, travel,  and  warfare,  as  well  as  the  development 
and  military  control  of  distant  countries,  have  all  been 
largely  dependent  upon  the  length  and  the  quality  of 
the  world's  highways.  The  greatest  road  builders  of 
ancient  times  were  the  Romans,  whose  broad  highways 
through  Gaul  and  Britain  still  remain  examples  of 
excellent  engineering.  The  most  famous  of  these 
roads  is  perhaps  the  Appian  Way  in  Italy,  which  was 
begun  by  Appius  Claudius  in  312  B.C.  In  general, 
Roman  roads  were  built  in  straight  lines,  five  yards 
wide,  regardless  of  ordinary  grades,  and  were  paved 
to  a  great  depth,  the  several  layers  of  stone  and  con- 
crete sometimes  aggregating  three  feet  in  thickness. 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  191 

Upon  such  solid  foundations  did  the  bonds  of  empire 
rest! 

The  work  of  organized  road  making  in  the  United 
States  dates  from  about  1800.  Of  course,  there  were 
the  old  colonial  roads,  like  the  Glade  Road  of  Southern 
Pennsylvania  over  which  ammunition  and  supplies 
for  the  western  forts  passed  during  the  Revolution ; 
and  as  early  as  1786  there  was  a  turnpike  of  sixty-six 
miles  between  Philadelphia  and  Lancaster,  Pennsyl- 
vania —  a  masterpiece  of  its  kind,  paved  with  stone 
and  overlaid  with  gravel,  so  that  it  was  never  impas- 
sable even  during  the  most  severe  seasons.  But  the 
great  highways  of  the  early  days  were  constructed 
later,  in  the  course  of  western  settlement.  Boone's 
Lick  Road  (so  called  because  of  a  deer  lick  at  one  place 
on  the  route)  was  surveyed  from  St.  Charles,  twenty- 
six  miles  west  of  St.  Louis,  to  Old  Franklin,  Missouri, 
in  1815.  This  road  brought  into  Missouri  a  stream 
of  settlers  from  Kentucky,  Virginia,  Tennessee,  and 
the  Carolinas.  Immigration  was  turned  toward  cen- 
tral Missouri,  and  six  years  later  this  state  came  into 
the  Union. 

Perhaps  the  old  turnpike  that  is  talked  of  most 
to-day  is  the  Old  National  or  Cumberland  Road  begun 
in  1806  at  Cumberland,  Maryland.  The  State  of 
Maryland  had  built  a  turnpike  from  Baltimore  to 
Cumberland,  so  the  National  Road  was  continued 
westward  from  this  point.  It  was  constructed  by 
sections  and  finally  reached  Vandalia,  Illinois,  in  1840. 
This  is  only  sixty-nine  miles  east  of  St.  Louis,  the 
intended  terminus;  but  it  never  reached  that  terminus. 
It  was  built  partly  from  funds  derived  by  the  federal 


192  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

government  from  the  sale  of  public  lands  in  the  states 
traversed,  but  additional  appropriations  were  neces- 
sary. The  Great  National  Pike,  as  it  was  called, 
was  for  many  years  under  federal  control,  but  by  1856 
the  government  had  turned  it  all  over  to  the  various 
states  through  which  it  passed.  It  crossed  western 
Maryland,  southwestern  Pennsylvania,  and  Ohio,  Indi- 
ana, and  Illinois  as  far  as  Vandalia.  The  cities  of 
Wheeling,  Columbus,  Indianapolis,  Terre  Haute,  and 
Springfield  are  on  this  route.  Hills  were  leveled  and 
valleys  filled,  and  all  the  bridges  were  built  of  stone 
except  the  one  across  the  Monongahela  River  at  Browns- 
ville, Pennsylvania.  It  was  a  splendid  thoroughfare 
along  which  passed  two  streams,  one  made  up  of  the 
canopied  wagons  of  the  pioneers  on  their  way  to  Kansas, 
Colorado,  or  California  ;  the  other,  of  loads  of  produce 
going  eastward  to  the  markets  from  the  farms  on  either 
side  of  the  Pike. 

Among  the  other  roads  that  played  important  parts 
in  the 'early  history  of  the  different  sections  of  this 
country  are  the  Post  Road  from  Boston  to  New 
York  ;  the  Seminole  Trail  from  Washington  to  Atlanta, 
Georgia,  and  thence  to  Birmingham,  Alabama ;  the 
Dixie  Trail  from  Gettysburg  to  Roanoke,  Virginia;  the 
Capitol  Highway  from  Washington  to  Jacksonville, 
Florida ;  the  Tri-State  Road  from  Chicago  to  Daven- 
port, Iowa,  a  continuation  of  which  passes  through 
Des  Moines  to  Omaha,  and  is  called  the  River- 
to- River  Road ;  the  Overland  Trail  once  used  by 
the  United  States  Government  for  carrying  mail 
and  passengers  from  Chicago  to  the  Pacific  Coast ; 
the  Chisholm  Trail  from  Kansas  to  Texas ;  the  Emi- 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  193 

grant  Trail  of  South  Dakota ;  the  Platte  River 
Road  of  Nebraska ;  the  Blue  Grass  Road  of  Iowa ; 
the  Baltimore  Trail  of  Kansas ;  the  El  Camino-Sierra 
Route,  linking  Nevada  and  California ;  the  Santa  Fe 
Trail  from  Santa  Fe  to  Kansas  City ;  and  the  Oregon 
Trail  through  the  states  of  Idaho  and  Washington 
to  Vancouver,  B.  C.,  and  the  Sound.  In  spite  of  the 
number  of  these  trails  of  highways,  they  have  not  yet 
been  linked  into  a  national  road  extending  either 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  or  from  the  Lakes  to 
the  Gulf,  though  great  progress  toward  this  end  has 
been  made  in  recent  years. 

In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  different 
States  began  to  appreciate  the  importance  of  road  con- 
struction for  their  local  agricultural  development ; 
and  since  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century,  a 
vigorous  campaign  for  good  roads  has  been  carried 
on  by  both  city  and  country  districts.  As  a  result, 
many  new  roads  have  been  constructed  or  are  under 
process  of  construction.  The  first  transcontinental 
route  of  the  country  is  the  Lincoln  Highway.  Extend- 
ing from  New  York  City  to  San  Francisco,  leading 
from  one  state  to  the  next  in  a  direct  route,  taking 
easy  grades,  avoiding  the  great  cities  yet  adjacent 
thereto,  it  is  to  be  a  great  trunk  line,  a  transcontinental 
artery.  The  bed  of  this  road  is  to  be  from  twelve 
to  twenty  feet  wide,  of  concrete  —  broad,  smooth, 
approximately  dustless  —  a  road  for  continual  and 
heavy  traffic  at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  Most  of  the 
expense  of  building  and  maintenance  is  being  borne 
by  those  states  through  which  it  passes.  Because 
of  the  route  laid  out  for  this  road,  a  number  of  the 


194  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

states  will  be  able  to  use  stretches  of  their  state  roads  or 
other  improved  roads  for  their  sections  of  the  Highway. 
It  will,  indeed,  be  a  worthy  memorial  to  the  president 
who  preserved  our  Union. 

The  increased  activity  in  road  building  has  caused 
a  proportionately  large  increase  in  the  amount  of  money 
expended  for  that  purpose.  In  1913,  approximately 
$206,000,000  was  spent  on  roads  in  the  United  States, 
as  compared  with  $79,000,000  in  1904,  —  an  increase 
of  250  per  cent.  This  new  attitude  toward  roads  has 
been  due  in  large  measure  to  the  increased  use  of 
automobiles,  both  motor  trucks  and  passenger  cars. 

Two  centuries  ago,  the  pack  horse  took  produce  to 
the  market ;  next  came  the  wagon  ;  and  now  the  self- 
propelled  vehicle  has  cut  the  distance  from  farm  to 
market  at  least  fifty  per  cent  and  has  greatly  increased 
the  size  of  the  load  which  can  be  transported  at  one 
time.  The  farmer  can  now  procure  an  automobile 
as  easily  as  his  grandfather  could  a  top  buggy;  but 
the  motor  vehicle  has  introduced  into  traffic  a  new 
element  of  speed  which  was  not  contemplated  by 
McAdam  and  the  other  highway  engineers  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  which  makes  it  necessary  that 
roads  be  better  built  than  in  the  past.  Vehicles  are 
no  longer  light  and  slow-moving.  The  automobile 
truck  is  replacing  on  the  farm  the  slow-going  wide- 
tired  wagon,  and  as  it  will  go  wherever  the  roads  per- 
mit, its  possibilities  of  service  are  tremendous.  But 
steep  grades  and  sharp  curves  are  impossible  for 
speedy  automobile  traffic ;  and  apart  from  consid- 
erations of  speed,  the  increase  in  the  amount  of  traffic 
on  the  roads  necessitates  a  radical  improvement  in 


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196  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

road  building,  especially  the  adaptation  of  the  roads 
to  the  vehicles  which  are  to  be  used  on  them.  Just 
as  all  roads  once  led  to  Rome,  so,  to-day,  all  roads 
lead  to  towns  and  cities.  This  is  why  interurban, 
suburban,  and  rural  highways  concern  both  the  city 


INDUSTRIAL  ZONES  ABOUT  A  CITY 

Note  the  effect  of  streams,  swamps,  mountains,  and  railroads  upon  the  con- 
tour of  these  zones. 

and  the  rural  district.  About  every  city,  there  exists  a 
belt  of  rural  territory  which  is  linked  to  it  in  the  closest 
fashion.  Much  of  the  city's  food  is  grown  in  this 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES      197 

belt  and  more  would  be  if  means  of  communication 
were  better.  Sundry  other  industries  due  to  the  pres- 
ence of  the  city  are  carried  on  in  this  area.  The  resi- 
dents for  many  miles  around  are  valuable  customers 
of  the  city's  shops.  Moreover,  good  roads  will  enable 
city  workers  to  live  in  the  suburbs  or  in  the  open  country. 
It  is  said  that  one  third  of  all  the  industrial  workers 
of  Belgium  live  outside  of  towns,  and  cultivate  small 
holdings  of  land.  In  every  way,  the  city  stands  to 
gain  by  equipping  rural  and  suburban  roads  to  carry 
heavy  traffic  with  speed  and  economy,  and  these  facts 
explain  why  boards  of  commerce  have  taken  such  an 
active  part  in  the  good-road  propaganda. 

Farmers,  too,  are  generally  good-road  advocates. 
Good  roads  enable  them  to  get  their  produce  to  market 
more  quickly  and  cheaply  and  in  better  condition 
than  would  be  the  case  if  the  traveling  were  difficult. 
Cheap  motors  and  good  roads  will  enable  the  farmer 
or  dairyman  living  in  the  agricultural  zone  that  feeds 
a  city  to  reach  his  market  within  half  or  three  quarters 
of  an  hour,  without  losing  practically  half  a  night's 
rest  on  every  trip,  as  is  necessary  oftentimes  when  horses 
are  used  for  hauling  produce.  With  a  market  always 
readily  accessible,  it  pays  to  work  land  to  a  greater  de- 
gree of  production  ;  thus  good  roads  increase  the  value 
of  farm  land.  In  New  York  State  in  1912,  the  average 
value  of  all  farm  lands  on  dirt  roads  was  $35  per  acre, 
while  the  value  of  those  on  macadam  roads  was  $51. 

State  aid  given  to  counties  and  other  local  units 
has  accelerated  good-road  progress.  New  Jersey  began 
this  state  aid  movement  in  1891  by  the  passage  of  her 
State  Highway  Law.  Massachusetts  and  Vermont 


198  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

followed  a  year  later.  By  1904,  fifteen  states  had  State 
Highway  Departments,  and  to-day  there  are  only  six 
states  without  them.  State  aid  is  important  because 
of  the  money  which  it  induces  counties  and  townships 
to  spend  for  good  roads,  rather  than  for  the  money 
which  it  gives  directly  from  the  state  treasury,  as  this 
latter  is  usually  only  a  third  of  the  total  expense.  It  is  a 
method  of  arousing  local  interests  and  of  enlisting  local 
support  for  the  cause. 

Although  the  introduction  of  the  automobile  gave 
a  great  impetus  to  road  building  within  the  various 
states,  nothing  short  of  a  World  War  in  which  America 
was  embroiled  was  able  to  influence  the  nation  as  a 
whole  to  see  the  need  of  national  highways  which  would 
bind  the  states  together  as  a  single  unity,  instead  of  pro- 
viding merely  a  means  of  transportation  within  forty- 
eight  separate  units.  The  military  necessity  of  good 
roads  along  the  sea  and  gulf  coasts  and  from  the  national 
capital  to  the  numerous  points  of  defense  along  this 
coast  line  was  a  strong  factor  in  causing  Congress  to 
pass  the  Federal  Aid  Road  Act  in  1917.  By  means  of 
this  Act  the  federal  government  will  provide  any  state 
with  a  sum  of  money,  which  must,  however,  be  dupli- 
cated by  the  state,  for  the  purpose  of  building  and  main- 
taining highways.  The  money  thus  provided  by  the 
federal  government  cannot  be  given  to  the  counties 
to  be  frittered  away  in  small  driblets  in  township  roads 
that  lead  nowhere,  but  must  be  expended  in  state 
highway  systems  which  can  be  linked  into  a  great  net- 
work of  national  highways  leading  from  one  state  to 
another  and  so  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other. 
Such  a  system  of  roads  covering  the  entire  country  would 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  199 

have  value  for  military  preparedness,  but  more  than 
this,  it  would  have  direct  bearing  on  food  prices  in 
peace  as  well  as  in  war. 

While  there  has  been  so  much  activity  and  so  much 
agitation  with  regard  to  good  roads,  only  a  small  pro- 
portion of  the  roads  in  this  country  can  be  classed  as 
improved.  Most  of  the  work  is  yet  to  be  done.  Some 
states  have  made  costly  mistakes  in  road  building. 
They  must  put  down  better  roads  than  they  have,  so 
far,  or  face  continually  the  real  highway  problem  of 
maintenance  and  reconstruction.  Only  such  roads  as 
will  last  from  twenty  to  thirty  years  are  economical. 
The  two  types  of  roads  that  meet  this  requirement  are 
made  from  Portland  cement  concrete  or  from  vitrified 
brick  laid  on  a  concrete  foundation.  Such  roads 
should  be  built  in  all  places  where  traffic  is  heavy 
and  rapid,  especially  on  the  main  roads  leading 
into  the  cities.  Of  course,  such  highways  are  expen- 
sive, but  in  the  long  run  they  will  pay  for  themselves 
by  their  superior  endurance  and  the  small  cost  for 
annual  upkeep.  Even  the  initial  high  cost  of  brick 
and  cement  could  probably  in  some  cases  be  greatly 
lessened  if  the  state  made  its  own  brick  and  cement  and 
used  in  the  making  the  labor  of  convicts  and  of  the  un- 
employed in  our  cities.  Each  federal  census  shows  an 
alarming  number  of  people  unemployed  from  one  to 
twelve  months  in  every  year.  The  building  of  roads  could 
be  made  a  national  employment  reserve  for  lean  seasons 
and  years.  Some  of  those  engaged  in  seasonal  trades, 
and  some  of  the  unemployed,  could  be  brought  out  of 
the  city  for  those  months  in  which  road  building  is  pos- 
sible in  the  rural  districts. 


200  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

Roads  in  our  rural  districts  should  have  a  roadbed 
at  least  nine  feet  wide  where  traffic  is  light,  and  at 
least  sixteen  feet  wide  where  the  traffic  is  heavy. 
They  should  be  durable,  mudless,  and  dustless ;  and 
the  roadside  should  be  beautified.  The  effect  of 
such  roads  on  rural  life  can  scarcely  be  overestimated. 
They  touch  the  social,  educational,  and  religious,  as 
well  as  the  industrial,  aspects  of  life.  When  a  central 
locality  can  be  easily  and  quickly  reached,  a  social 
center,  a  consolidated  school,  or  a  church  will  be  far 
less  likely  to  suffer  from  a  lack  of  attendants.  Trolley 
lines  are  rendering  a  great  service  to  rural  people  as 
well  as  to  those  city  workers  who  live  in  the  outlying 
rural  districts.  Thousands  of  rural  districts  are  not 
reached  by  railroads,  but  trolley  lines  may  eventually 
serve  them  and  connect  them  with  towns  and  rail- 
roads. However,  trolleys  can  never  take  the  place  of 
serviceable  roads. 

Good  roads  are  operating  in  large  measure  to  break 
down  the  farmer's  isolation.  They  make  possible 
the  operation  of  many  other  agencies,  which  depend  for 
their  success  upon  the  condition  of  the  highways. 
Rural  free  delivery  of  mail  was  begun  experimentally 
on  October  i,  1896,  on  three  routes,  namely,  from 
Charlestown,  from  Uvilla,  and  from  Halltown,  West 
Virginia.  Nine  months  later,  rural  mail  service  had 
grown  to  82  routes,  emanating  from  43  post  offices 
in  29  states.  On  June  30,  1918,  there  were  43,453  rural 
mail  routes  operating  from  18,813  post  offices  ;  and  now 
every  state  has  rural  free  delivery  of  mail  and  parcel  post. 

About  this  time  eight  mo  tor- vehicle  routes  were  es- 
tablished between  important  market  centers.  These 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  201 

routes  were  designed  primarily  to  promote  the  conserva- 
tion of  food  products.  They  reduce  cost  to  the  ultimate 
consumer  by  making  more  accessible  the  productive 
zone  in  the  vicinity  of  large  cities,  thus  benefiting  alike 
the  farmer-producers  and  the  city-consumers.  So  suc- 
cessful was  this  experiment  that  the  motor-vehicle 
service  has  been  extended,  and  105  trucks  are  now  in 
operation  over  823  routes. 

When  good  roads,  rural  free  delivery  and  parcel 
post,  county  libraries,  and  the  telephone,  reach  the  ma- 
jority of  farm  houses,  the  isolation  of  country  life  will 
have  passed,  and  with  the  passing  of  isolation  by 
far  the  larger  part  of  the  Rural  Life  Problem  will  go 
also. 


QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 

These  questions  and  references  will  provide  abundant  material 
for  three  or  four  meetings. 

1.  Define  the  terms  business,  enterprise,  farming,  agriculture. 

2.  Prove  that  farming  is  necessarily  a  scientific  business. 

3.  Upon  what  conditions  does  success  in  fanning  depend  at  the 
present  time  ? 

4.  What  do  you  understand  by  an  industrial  zone  ? 

5.  What  conditions  determine  the  location  and  extent  of  these 
zones  ? 

6.  Why  do  such  matters  as  schools,  home  life,  public  health, 
clubs,  and  the  church  affect  the  business  side  of  farm  life? 

7.  Does  the  business  side  of  farm  life  affect  the  schools,  home 
life,  public  health,  clubs,  and  churches?     Consider  these  two  ques- 
tions very  carefully. 

8.  Discuss    the  two  general  classes  of  farmers  in  the  rural 
districts.     The  three  specific  classes  of  farm  workers. 

9.  Why  do  so  many  young  people  leave  the  farm?    So  many 
older  people  ? 


202  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

10.  Why  do  farmers  no  longer  produce  on  their  farms  all  the 
things  they  use  there  ? 

11.  Why  are  there  so  many  tenants  in  this  country?     So  many 
mortgaged  farms?     (See  United  States  Census  for  1910  for  percent- 
age of  tenancy  and  mortgaged  farms.) 

12.  Discuss  fully  the  provisions  of  the  Federal  Farm  Loan  Act 
passed  in  1916. 

13.  Discuss  long-time  and  short-time  farm  credit  in    Europe. 
Are  such  credit  systems  applicable  to  this  country  ?     Why  has  the 
United  States  been  so  late  in  passing  a  Farm  Loan  Act  ? 

14.  Why  has  the  average  size  of  farms  in  this  country  been  de- 
creasing ?     Did  the  Civil  War  have  any  effect  upon  the  size  of  the 
farms  in  the  South  ?     Has  the  scarcity  of  farm  labor  affected  the 
size  of  farms  ?     What  about  the  increased  use  of  farm  machinery  ? 

1 5 .  Discuss  the  ' '  agricultural  ladder. ' '     Name  some  of  the  things 
that  will  help  farmers  to  climb  this  ladder  more  easily  and  quickly. 

16.  Why  does  such  a  state  as  Illinois  have  so  much  tenancy? 

17.  In  how  many  ways  does  tenancy  affect  rural  life? 

1 8.  Why  are  high  prices  for  land  a  matter  of  interest  to  the  en- 
tire population  of  a  nation?     Consider  this  matter  very  carefully. 

19.  What  are  the  provisions  of  the  last  Homestead  Act?     Is 
there  any  homesteading  being  done  at  the  present  time?     If  so, 
where?     (Write  to  the  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office, 
Washington,  D.  C.,  for  data.) 

20.  Name  some  of  the  ways  of  making  farm  ownership  possible 
to  more  farmers. 

21.  What  do  you  understand  by  cooperation?     What  are  some 
of  the  purposes  of  cooperation? 

22.  What  is  meant  by  organized  cooperation  in  agriculture? 
What  is  the  purpose  of  organized  agricultural  cooperation? 

23.  State  clearly  the  difference  between  a  stock  corporation 
and  a  cooperative  association. 

24.  Why  have  most  of  the  farmers'   cooperative  associations 
been    for    the    purpose    of    marketing     produce     and     securing 
better  prices  ? 

25.  State  two  chief  reasons  why  farmers  must  learn  to  market 
their  produce  more  intelligently  and  efficiently. 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  203 

26.  Why  have  farmers  found  it  necessary  to  buy  cooperatively  ? 

27.  Name  some  of  the  proper  persons  to  establish  cooperative 
enterprises  for  farmers.     Why  should  farmers  beware  of  profes- 
sional promoters  ? 

28.  Name  the  essentials  of  successful  agricultural  cooperation. 

29.  Why  should  agricultural  cooperative  associations  federate? 

30.  Illustrate  the  advantages  of  the  federation  of  local  or- 
ganizations into  state  and  interstate  federations. 

31.  Are  agricultural  cooperative  associations  going  to  be  in- 
creasingly necessary  to  farmers?     Defend  your  opinion. 

32.  State  at  least  four  reasons  why  they  are  necessary  to-day. 

33.  Are  these  associations  an   attack   on  middlemen?     Have 
middlemen  treated  farmers  fairly  in  buying  or  selling? 

34.  Are  farmers  to  blame  for  the  high  cost  of  living  ? 

35.  Do  we  have  too  many  middlemen?    Why  do  we  have  so 
many? 

36.  Name  the  advantages  of  agricultural  cooperation  to  non- 
farmers  and  consumers. 

37.  Why  have  such  countries  as  Denmark,  Holland,  Belgium,  and 
Ireland  been  forced  to  develop  agricultural  cooperative  associations  ? 

38.  What  is  being  done  in  this  country  to  further  organized 
agricultural  cooperation  ? 

39.  Make  a  list  of  labor-saving  devices  for  farm  work  which 
have  come  into  use  during  the  past  seventy-five  years. 

40.  Make  a  list  of  labor-saving  devices  for  the  work  of  the  home 
which  have  come  into  use  during  the  past  one  hundred  years. 

41.  Does   the   use   of   complicated   and   expensive   machinery 
necessitate  a  higher  grade  of  labor  ? 

42.  Name  the  advantages  of  labor-saving  devices  to  farm  people. 

43.  Trace  the  development  of  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture.     In  how  many  ways  does  it  serve  rural  people  ? 

44.  Name  the  three  periods  in  the  history  of  federal  aid  to 
agriculture. 

45.  Discuss  the  laws  passed  and  the  work  started  during  each 
of  the  three  periods. 

46.  What  is  the  difference  between  the  Smith-Lever  Act  and 
the  Smith-Hughes  Act? 


204  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

47.  What  agricultural  extension  work  is  being  done  in  your 
county? 

48.  Is  it  possible  for  all  rural  young  men  to  attend  a  State 
College  of  Agriculture  ?     In  what  ways  can  a  rural  high  school  help 
young  men  who  have  passed  the  usual  school  age  ? 

49.  Name  some  ways  in  which  state  governments  help  rural 
people. 

50.  Do  any  of  the  forces  influencing  rural  life  act  alone,  or  do  all 
these  forces  act  and  react  upon  each  other  ? 

51.  State  as  many  reasons  as  you  can  why  good  roads  are 
necessary  to  rural  districts. 

52.  When  did  the  work  of  organized  road-making  begin  in  the 
United  States? 

53.  Discuss  the  Lincoln  Highway. 

54.  State  the  reasons  why  the  movement  for  good  roads   has 
recently  aroused  so  much  interest  and  support. 

55.  State  the  reasons  why  farmers  are  enthusiastic   advocates 
of  good  roads. 

56.  Of  what  value  are  good  rural  roads  to  city  people  ? 

57.  Discuss  the  best  kind  of  roads  to  build. 

58.  How  can  the  cost  of  building  roads  be  reduced?     Of  main- 
taining roads  ? 

59.  State  some  general  suggestions  for  the  building  of  rural 
roads. 

60.  In  how  many  ways  may  trolley  lines  serve  the  rural  districts  ? 
Are  they  serving  the  rural  districts  as  fully  as  they  should?     Ex- 
plain. 

61.  Discuss  rural  free  delivery  of  mail  in  this  country. 

62.  Discuss  the  parcel  post  service  in  this  country. 


REFERENCES 

BUCK,  SOLON  J.  The  Granger  Movement,  Chapters  I,  II,  III,  V, 
VII,  IX.  Harvard  University  Press,  Cambridge,  1913. 

BUTTERFIELD,  KENYON  L.  The  Farmer  and  the  New  Day,  Chapters 
XII,  XIV;  Appendices  I-IV.  The  Macmillan  Company. 
New  York,  1919. 


CONSTRUCTIVE  ECONOMIC  FORCES  205 

CARVER,  THOMAS  NIXON.  Principles  of  Rural  Economics,  Chapters 
I,  II.  Ginn  and  Company,  Boston,  1911. 

CLAY,  HENRY.  Economics:  An  Introduction  for  the  General  Reader, 
Chapters  III,  IV.  The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916 

ELY,  RICHARD  T.  Private  Colonization  of  Land.  Bulletin  No.  I, 
American  Association  for  Agricultural  Legislation,  Madison, 
Wisconsin,  1918. 

GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.  Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapters  X, 
XX,  pp.  162-174.  The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 

HIBBARD,  BENJAMIN  H.  Agricultural  Cooperation.  Bulletin  238, 
Agricultural  Experiment  Station,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

— .  The  Settlement  of  Public  Land  in  the  United  States.  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin,  1917. 

HIBBARD,  BENJAMIN  H.,  and  HOBSON,  ASHER.  Cooperation  in 
Wisconsin.  Bulletin  282,  Agricultural  Experiment  Station, 
University  of  Wisconsin. 

HOLMAN,  CHARLES  W.  Cooperative  Packing  Plants.  National  Agri- 
cultural Organization  Society,  Madison,  Wisconsin,  1917. 

LYMAN,  CHARLES  A.  The  Cooperative  Society  in  Wisconsin.  Na- 
tional Agricultural  Organization  Society,  Madison,  Wisconsin, 
1917. 

MCCARTHY,  CHARLES.  The  Cost  of  Living  and  the  Remedy.  Na- 
tional Agricultural  Organization  Society,  Madison,  Wisconsin, 
1916.  Copies  of  the  three  bulletins  listed  above  can  be  secured 
from  the  National  Board  of  Farm  Organizations,  Washington, 
B.C. 

MORMAN,  JAMES  B.  The  Place  of  Agriculture  in  Reconstruction, 
Chapters  VIII-XIII.  E.  P.  Button  &  Co.  New  York,  1919. 

.  The  Principles  of  Rural  Credits.  The  entire  work.  The 

Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1915. 

MYRICK,  HERBERT.  The  Federal  Farm  Loan  System.  The  entire 
work.  The  Orange  Judd  Company,  New  York,  1916. 

PAGE,  LOGAN  W.  Roads,  Paths,  and  Bridges,  Chapters  I,  II, 
IV-VIII,  X,  XL  The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York, 
1912. 

PLUNKETT,  SIR  HORACE.  The  Rural  Life  Problem  of  the  United 
States,  Chapters  V,  VI,  VII.  The  Macmillan  Company,  New 
York,  1910. 


206  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

POWELL,  GEORGE  H.     Cooperation  in  Agriculture,  Chapters  I,  II, 

III,  VI,  VII,  XL     The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1910. 
RAVENEL,  SAMUEL  W.     Ravenel's  Road  Primer  for  Children.     The 

entire  work.     A  good  book  for  adults,  also.      A.  C.  McClurg 

&  Company,  Chicago,  1912. 
SPILLMAN,  W.  J. ;  ELY,  RICHARD  T. ;  and  GALPIN,  CHARLES  JOSIAH. 

Papers  on   Tenancy.     Bulletin  No.   2,  American  Association 

for  Agricultural  Legislation,  Madison,  Wisconsin. 
TAYLOR,  HENRY  C.   Agricultural  Economics,  Chapters  XIV-XVI, 

XIX-XXIII,    XXVII,    XXVIII,    XXX.      The     Macmillan 

Company,  New  York,  1919. 
TOWNE,   EZRA   T.     Social   Problems,   Chapters   XV,   XVI.     The 

Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 
VOGT,  PAUL  L.     Introduction  to  Rural  Sociology,  Chapters  III-VI, 

XII-XIV.     D.  Appleton  and  Company,  New  York,  1917. 
The   Lincoln    Highway.     Lincoln   Highway    Association, 

Detroit,  Michigan. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  IN  FARM  LIFE 

Improvement  in  agricultural  life  is  at  present  stim- 
ulated by  a  number  of  social  agencies.  Reference  has 
already  been  made  to  the  work  of  the  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture,  which  has,  in  recent  years, 
been  an  educational  force  of  constantly  increasing  effec- 
tiveness in  rural  life.  Its  experiment  stations,  bulle- 
tins, field  agents,  and  speakers,  and  its  influence  on 
legislation,  both  federal  and  state,  have  been  of  the 
greatest  value  to  rural  progress,  and  have  done  much 
for  the  cultural  as  well  as  for  the  economic  aspects  of 
American  farm  life. 

The  contribution  of  the  agricultural  colleges  to  farm 
life  has  been  supplemented  in  recent  years  by  the  Ex- 
tension Divisions  of  more  than  four  hundred  univer- 
sities, colleges,  and  normal  schools  in  all  parts  of  the 
country. 

University  Extension  Work. — That  department  of 
universities  called  the  University  Extension  devotes  it- 
self to  teaching  outside  the  university  or  college  proper. 
The  work  is  conducted  either  by  correspondence  or  by 
lecturers  sent  out  from  the  institution  giving  the  course. 
This  kind  of  nonresident  college  study  is  making 
education  available  to  thousands  of  people  who  are 
unable,  for  one  reason  or  another,  to  attend  a  higher 

institution   of   learning.     The   work  offered   is   so   or- 

207 


208  THE  RURAL  COMMUNITY 

ganized  that  it  may  be  done  by  a  student  working  alone 
or  with  a  group.  Some  of  the  courses,  such  as  those 
offered  by  the  Extension  Divisions  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  and  the  University  of  Chicago,  carry  credit 
toward  a  college  degree  ;  others  are  of  a  more  elementary 
character. 

The  formal  courses  offered  by  these  extension  di- 
visions are,  however,  but  a  fraction  of  their  educational 
service.  The  University  of  Wisconsin  Extension  Di- 
vision, for  instance,  has  a  department  of  debating  and 
public  speaking  which  furnishes  complete  programs 
for  an  entire  year's  work  for  clubs  and  similar  organ- 
izations. It  furnishes,  also,  suggestions,  books,  and 
pamphlets  to  any  citizen,  school,  debating  team,  or 
group  that  is  making  a  study  of  any  subject,  and  which 
requests  material.  The  department  of  visual  instruc- 
tion sends  out  to  all  parts  of  the  state  sets  of  stereop- 
ticon  slides  and  moving  picture  films  for  exhibition. 
Hundreds  of  sets  of  pictures  of  high  quality  on  every 
sort  of  subject  are  kept  in  stock  at  the  University. 
Well-planned  series  of  programs  are  offered  schools  and 
communities,  and  those  selecting  any  one  set  are  listed 
together  as  a  "circuit."  The  various  sets  of  pictures 
constituting  the  selected  program  are  then  sent  out 
to  each  of  the  several  communities  on  the  circuit,  and 
on  a  given  date  each  community  ships  the  one  that 
it  received  first  to  a  community  specified  by  the  Uni- 
versity. Each  set  of  pictures  goes  to  each  of  the  com- 
munities on  the  circuit  before  it  returns  to  the  Univer- 
sity, and  the  whole  process  of  transferring  them  from 
community  to  community  is  so  well  worked  out  and 
watched  that  the  pictures  are  seldom  late  and  rarely 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  209 

go  astray.  This  plan  makes  available  to  every  country 
school  in  the  state  that  desires  them  hundreds  of  sets 
of  pictures,  at  so  small  a  cost  as  to  make  it  possible  for 
every  community  to  afford  the  service. 

Other  branches  of  the  Extension  Division  assist  the 
local  communities  in  developing  community  singing 
and  dramatics,  social  centers,  parent-teachers'  as- 
sociations, better  health  conditions,  better  understand- 
ing of  political  and  economic  problems,  and  better 
local  government. 

Farmers'  Institutes.  —  Another  kind  of  extension  work 
is  in  the  form  of  Farmers*  Institutes.  These  institutes, 
too,  take  instruction  to  the  people  at  their  own  homes 
and  particularly  benefit  the  adults.  The  first  meeting 
of  this  kind  in  the  United  States  was  held  in  Hudson, 
Saint  Croix  County,  Wisconsin,  on  November  24  and 
25,  1885.  The  work  given  at  these  institutes  has  always 
been  strictly  utilitarian.  Although  at  first  planned 
only  for  men,  women's  interests  are  now  being  pro- 
vided for  in  matters  of  domestic  economy,  first  aid, 
and  home  nursing.  Much  of  the  instruction  is  given 
by  practical  farmers  who  have  done  worth  while  things ; 
the  more  scientific  part  of  the  work  is  done,  however, 
by  the  teaching  staffs  of  agricultural  colleges  and  by 
county  agents.  At  one  time  nearly  every  state  in  the 
Union  operated  these  institutes  under  a  special  state 
bureau,  but  in  recent  years  a  number  of  states  have 
turned  them  over  to  their  agricultural  colleges  as  ex- 
tension work  belonging  properly  to  these  schools. 
Demonstrations  such  as  are  now  being  carried  out  by 
the  states  under  the  provisions  of  the  Smith-Lever  Bill 
will  doubtless  absorb  still  more  of  this  farmers'  in- 


2IO 


THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 


stitute  work  in  the  future,  yet  there  is  a  place  for  the 
institute,  and  it  can  accomplish  much  practical  good 
for  the  farmer. 

County  Libraries.  —  Another  agency  for  the  enrich- 
ment of  rural  life  is  the  recently  established  county  li- 
brary. The  need  of  such  an  institution  has  been 
well  stated  by  P.  P.  Claxton,  former  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Education  : 1 

"The  increase  in  interest  in  public  libraries  during  the  last  three 
decades  has  been  great.  Through  public  taxation  and  private 
donations,  libraries  have  been  established  in  almost  all  cities  and 
larger  towns  in  the  United  States.  Many  of  these  are  housed  in 

costly  buildings.  Many 
of  them  are  served  by 
expert  librarians  and 
trained  assistants. 
However,  much  more 
than  half  of  the  men, 
women,  and  children  of 
the  United  States  live  in 
the  open  country  and  in 
the  smaller  towns  and 
cities  out  of  reach  of  the 
city  libraries.  Probably 
seventy  per  cent  of  the 
entire  population  of  the 
country  have  no  access 
to  any  adequate  collec- 
tion of  books  or  to  a 
public  reading  room. 
In  only  about  one  third 
of  the  counties  of  the 
United  States  is  there  a  library  of  5000  volumes  or  more.  In  only 
about  100  of  these  do  the  village  and  country  people  have  free  use 
1  See  .preface  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Antrim's  excellent  book,  The 
County  Library. 


The  library  facilities  which  Indiana  provides 
for  her  rural  people  are  almost  entirely  lack- 
ing, yet  this  state  is  one  of  the  most  progres- 
sive in  this  field  of  educational  work. 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES 


211 


of  these  libraries.  In  this,  as  in  so  many  other  things,  the  very  people 
who  need  help  most  and  who  would  be  most  benefited  by  it  have 
been  neglected." 

In  a  few  instances,  city  libraries  have  been  opened 
to  country  and  village  people.  In  many  small  towns 
and  villages,  small  subscription  libraries,  open  a  few 
hours  in  the  week,  have  a  precarious  existence.  In 
several  states,  circulating  libraries  afford  some  relief. 
But  none  of  these  minister  to  the  country  people  in 
a  way  or  to  an  extent  to  be  compared  with  the  service 
which  the  large  and 
well-endowed  pub- 
lic libraries  render 
city  people. 

The  taxable  prop- 
erty of  small  towns, 
villages,  townships, 
and  rural  districts  is 
not  sufficient  to  en- 
able them  to  sup- 
port good  libraries 
without  state  or 
county  aid.  One  of 
the  best  plans  is 
the  county  library, 
supported  by  taxes 
levied  on  all  the  taxable  property  of  the  county, 
managed  by  trained  librarians,  and  having  branches 
in  all  the  towns,  villages,  and  schools  of  the  county.  Co- 
operation is  as  necessary  here  as  in  other  matters  of 
public  welfare.  That  no  county,  however  poor,  may 
be  without  the  means  to  support  such  a  library  there 


Nearly  three  fourths  of  Indiana's  urban  people 
enjoy  the  benefits  of  the  public  library. 


212  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

should  be  state  aid  for  public  libraries  just  as  there 
is  in  most  states  for  public  schools.  No  community 
should  be  deprived  of  access  to  all  the  books  of  which 
it  can  make  good  use. 

What  may  be  done  for  all  the  people  of  a  county 
through  a  county  library  and  its  branches  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  Brumback  Library  of  the  city  and  county 
of  Van  Wert,  Ohio,  the  first  library  in  the  United  States 
attempting  to  serve  an  entire  county  in  this  way. 
This  is  also  the  best  possible  illustration  of  how  city  and 
county,  the  private  individual  and  the  general  public, 
may  cooperate.  Mr.  John  Sanford  Brumback,  a  mer- 
chant and  banker  of  the  town  of  Van  Wert,  and  his  heirs, 
gave  the  money  for  the  handsome  library  building, 
the  city  gave  the  site  in  its  beautiful  wooded  park, 
and  the  upkeep  of  the  library  and  its  branches  is  pro- 
vided from  taxes  levied  on  the  property  of  the  county 
at  large.  This  library  works  by  means  of  sixteen 
branch  libraries  scattered  throughout  the  county ; 
through  these  its  books  circulate  at  regular  intervals. 
The  books  are  carefully  chosen  to  serve  the  interests 
of  village  and  farm  people,  and  bring  the  world  of  infor- 
mation and  culture  into  the  farm  home. 

The  Brumback  Library  was  opened  in  1901.  Since 
then  the  following  states  have  made  some  kind  of  pro- 
vision for  county  libraries  :  Ohio,  Wyoming,  Wisconsin, 
Minnesota,  Missouri,  California,  Maryland,  Washington, 
Oregon,  Nebraska,  New  York,  Iowa,  Arkansas,  Idaho, 
Tennessee,  South  Dakota,  Texas,  and  Montana.  In 
1916,  there  were  fourteen  states  in  which  county  libraries 
were  recognized  by  law.  In  seven  out  of  these  fourteen, 
the  county  may  establish  a  library ;  in  the  other 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  213 

seven,  the  county  may  adopt  an  existing  library  or 
make  a  contract  with  it.  In  the  other  states,  county 
libraries  may  be  organized  but  under  no  particular  law. 
After  a  study  of  the  library  laws  in  the  fourteen 
states  that  have  undertaken  the  establishment  of 
county  libraries,  we  would  suggest  that  two  provisions 
be  embodied  in  every  county  library  law : 

1.  Every  county  library  law  should  provide  for  a 
tax  on  the  taxable  property  of  the  whole  county. 

2.  Every  county  library  law  should  provide  that 
the  county  commissioner  may  enter  into  an  agreement 
with   the   trustees  of  some  established   library  in  the 
county  to  furnish  the  county  library  service.     This  is  the 
easiest  way  to  secure  a  county  library,  and  such  a  county 
library  is  to  be  preferred  to  none  at  all.     However,  it  is 
much  better  if  the  law  permits  a  county  so  desiring  to 
erect  its  own  library  building.     A  state  having  these 
fundamental  provisions  in  its  county  library  law  would 
have  a  workable  plan  that  would,  if  libraries  were  to 
be  organized  under  it,  promote  the  library  movement 
in  the  state.     Such  a  movement  has  for  its  chief  ideal 
the  betterment  of  all  the  people,  is  essentially  demo- 
cratic, and  is  in  line  with  the  best  progressive  legis- 
lation of  to-day. 

The  advantages  of  a  county  library  are  many.  The 
remote  rural  districts  can  be  reached  by  means  of  dis- 
tributing branches  in  the  trade  centers.  Such  libraries 
prevent  young  people  from  losing  the  reading  habit 
they  have  formed  while  in  school,  and  aid  the  people, 
old  and  young,  in  the  selection  of  books.  Every  dis- 
trict school  can  be  made  a  substation  of  the  county 
library  distributing  system,  thus  making  possible  bet- 


214  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

ter  country  school  libraries,  attracting  the  grown  people 
to  the  school  building,  and  adding  to  its  attraction  as 
a  social  center.  County  libraries  can  serve  the  ministers, 
physicians,  and  attorneys  who  are  just  starting  on  their 
professional  careers  and  who  cannot  afford  to  buy 
the  many  books  necessary  to  enable  them  to  keep 
abreast  of  the  times.  By  means  of  bulletins  and  by 
giving  out  literature  relative  to  the  causes  which  they 
represent,  an  enterprising  library  may  advertise 
betterment  organizations  of  both  the  county  and  the 
local  district.  The  county  is  an  area  large  enough  to 
support  such  an  institution ;  townships  are  frequently 
too  small  to  do  so.  A  county  library  would  have  funds 
needed  for  hiring  experienced  librarians  and  assistants 
and  would  be  able  to  acquire  first  class  equipment.  A 
county  library  supplying  a  large  area  gives  better  serv- 
ice than  a  number  of  small  libraries  scattered  over 
the  same  area.  Moreover,  it  makes  for  economy  of 
books  and  of  administration.  No  books  need  be  idle, 
as  all  can  be  kept  in  circulation  continually. 

In  a  number  of  states,  a  few  progressive  counties 
have  devised  another  method  of  getting  books  to  the 
people  living  in  remote  rural  districts.  Those  who  have 
been  the  leaders  in  this  movement  believe  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  public  library  to  take  the  book  to  the  man  back 
in  the  country,  rather  than  to  wait  for  him  to  come 
for  the  book.  They  are  missionaries  in  the  cause  of 
popular  education.  In  1905,  the  Washington  County 
Free  Library  of  Hagerstown,  Maryland,  put  a  book 
wagon  into  operation  in  that  county.  This  meant  the 
rural  free  delivery  of  books.  In  1912,  an  automobile 
was  purchased  which  made  it  possible  to  reach  more 


^Travefing  library  stations. 
'*Public  libraries  served  by  traveling  libraries. 

This  map  shows  the  traveling  library  service  enjoyed  by  the  people  of 
Indiana  in  1916. 

215 


2l6  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

homes.  The  State  Public  Library  Commission  of  Dela- 
ware maintains  book  wagons  in  two  of  its  three  coun- 
ties. The  Narragansett  Library  at  Peacedale,  Rhode 
Island,  and  the  Plainfield  Public  Library,  Indiana, 
each  have  automobile  service.  Seventy-five  or  more 
volumes  are  placed  in  these  wagons  or  automobiles, 
in  charge  of  an  agent  familiar  with  books,  who  studies 
the  tastes  and  the  needs  of  the  people  served  and 
brings  to  their  attention  those  volumes  which  they 
will  find  most  profitable  and  entertaining  reading.  In 
several  states,  county  agricultural  agents  have  contrived 
similar  means  of  getting  more  good  reading  matter  to 
their  people.  One  such  agent  in  Montana  devised  a 
traveling  library  case  on  the  back  of  his  automobile. 

The  county  library  has  aimed  from  the  first  to  supply 
the  best  reading  for  the  largest  number  at  the  least  cost. 
Public  libraries  no  longer  serve  mainly  the  scholar  and 
the  few.  They  are  working  more  and  more  with  the 
many,  serving  those  of  all  callings  and  of  all  degrees 
of  intelligence.  They  are  a  necessary  adjunct  to  the 
public  school,  helping  to  raise  the  general  level  of  intel- 
ligence and  to  influence  the  general  public  to  read 
more  and  better  literature.  County  circulating  libraries 
financed  in  part  or  in  whole  by  the  state  would  seem  to 
be  a  practical  solution  of  the  rural  library  problem. 

Club  Aims.  —  Rural  clubs  should  do  four  things : 
develop  a  good  community  spirit  and  a  spirit  of 
neighborliness ;  give  to  each  citizen  a  realization  of  the 
part  he  can  play  in  the  life  of  the  community,  and  of  his 
duty  toward  it ;  organize  the  community ;  bring  to  light 
special  ability  in  young  people,  and  develop  and  train 
them  for  leadership.  The  two  things  to  avoid  are 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  217 

dividing  the  community  into  factions  and  "over-club- 
bing' '  it.  Having  too  many  clubs  is  almost  as  undesirable 
as  having  too  few,  since  none  will  accomplish  serious 
work.  Just  enough  to  meet  the  business,  social,  edu- 
cational, and  religious  needs  of  the  people  will  prevent 
stagnation,  keep  alive  community  spirit,  and  give  the 
stimulation  necessary  to  normal,  happy  living. 

"What  a  tremendous  advantage  it  is  to  farmers  to  have  such 
organizations ;  what  a  lever  they  can  pull  and  control !  You  will 
understand  the  difference  between  a  rural  population  and  a  rural 
community,  between  a  people  loosely  knit  together  by  the  vague 
ties  of  a  common  latitude  and  longitude,  and  a  people  who  are 
closely  knit  together  in  an  association  and  who  form  a  true  social 
organism,  a  true  rural  community.  I  assert  that  there  never  can 
be  any  progress  in  rural  districts  or  any  real  prosperity  without 
such  farmers'  organizations.  Wherever  rural  prosperity  is  not 
reported  of  a  country,  inquire  into  it  and  it  will  be  found  that  there 
was  a  rural  population  but  no  rural  community,  no  organization 
to  promote  common  interests  and  unite  people  in  defense  of  them. 

"It  is  the  business  of  the  rural  reformer  to  create  the  rural  com- 
munity. It  is  the  antecedent  to  the  creation  of  a  rural  civilization. 
...  It  is  a  great  adventure,  the  building  up  of  a  civilization  — 
the  noblest  which  could  be  undertaken  by  any  person.  It  is  at 
once  the  noblest  and  most  practical  of  all  enterprises,  and  I  can 
conceive  of  no  greater  exaltation  for  the  spirit  of  man  than  the 
feeling  that  his  race  is  acting  nobly,  and  that  all  together  they  are 
performing  a  service,  not  only  to  each  other,  but  to  humanity  and 
those  who  come  after  them,  and  that  their  deeds  will  be  remembered. 
It  may  seem  a  grotesque  juxtaposition  of  things  essentially  different 
in  character  to  talk  of  national  idealism  and  then  of  farming,  but 
it  is  not  so.  They  are  inseparable.  The  national  idealism  which 
will  not  go  out  into  the  fields  and  deal  with  the  fortunes  of  the  work- 
ing farmers  is  a  false  idealism.  Our  conception  of  civilization  must 
include,  nay,  must  begin  with  the  life  of  the  humblest,  the  life  of 
the  average  man  or  manual  worker,  for  if  we  neglect  them  we  build 
in  sand.  The  neglected  classes  will  wreck  our  civilization.  The 


218  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

pioneers  of  a  new  social  order  must  think  first  of  the  average  man 
in  field  or  factory,  and  so  unite  these  and  so  inspire  them  that  the 
noblest  life  will  be  possible  through  their  companionship.  If  you 
will  not  offer  people  the  noblest  and  the  best,  they  will  go  in  search 
of  it.  Unless  the  countryside  can  offer  to  young  men  and  women 
some  satisfactory  food  for  soul  as  well  as  body,  it  will  fail  to  attract 
or  hold  its  population,  and  they  will  go  to  the  already  overcrowded 
towns,  and  the  lessening  of  rural  production  will  affect  production  in 
the  cities  and  factories,  and  the  problem  of  the  unemployed  will 
get  still  keener.  The  problem  is  not  only  an  economic  problem. 
It  is  a  human  one.  Man  does  not  live  by  cash  alone,  but  by  every 
gift  of  fellowship  and  brotherly  feeling  society  offers  him.  .  .  The 
country  is  the  fountain  of  the  life  and  health  of  the  race.  .  .  . 
Truly  the  creation  of  a  rural  civilization  is  the  greatest  need  of 
our  time.  The  fight  is  not  to  bring  people  back  to  the  land,  but  to 
keep  those  who  are  on  the  land  contented,  happy,  and  prosperous. 
We  must  organize  the  country  people  into  communities,  for  without 
some  kind  of  communal  life  men  hold  no  more  together  than  the  drifting 
sands  by  the  seashore"  l 

Cooperation  of  Rural  Organizations.  —  There  should 
exist  a  better  and  more  definite  cooperation  between 
all  those  agencies  that  are  working  for  the  development 
of  farming  interests.  At  a  recent  meeting  of  the 
New  York  State  Agricultural  Society,  Dr.  Liberty 
Hyde  Bailey  suggested  that  the  State  Legislature 
should  define  the  policy  of  the  State  in  reference  to 
agricultural  education  and  rural  affairs,  in  order  that 
the  whole  of  the  work  might  be  coordinated  and  a 
definite  plan  projected.  He  laid  down  the  following 
principles : 

i.  The  State  should  define  its  policy  in  the  develop- 
ment of  country  life. 

1  From  an  address  on  The  Rural  Community  delivered  to  the  American 
Commission  of  Agricultural  Inquiry  at  Plunkett  House,  Dublin,  on  July 
I5i  19131  by  George  W.  Russell,  known  to  the  literary  world  as  "A.  E." 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  219 

2.  It  should  name  the  classes  of  institutions  that  it 
proposes  to  utilize  in  the  execution  of  this  policy. 

3.  It  should  define  the  functions  of  the  different 
classes  of  institutions. 

4.  It   should    state    the    organic    relationship    that 
should  exist  between  them. 

Although  these  suggestions  were  made  with  educa- 
tional institutions  in  mind,  they  can  be  applied 
with  great  benefit  to  rural  organizations  in  general. 
In  the  existence  of  many  independent,  unrelated  organ- 
izations there  is  great  danger  of  waste  of  money,  time, 
and  effort.  The  different  aspects  of  the  present  rural 
problem  require  a  number  of  organizations.  However, 
that  the  best  results  may  be  achieved,  there  should  be 
an  agreement  and  a  division  of  labor  among  them, 
and  also  a  unity  of  purpose  so  that  all  can  be  united 
as  a  common  force  when  occasion  arises.  All  rural 
organizations  might  be  united  into  county,  state,  and 
national  federations,  thus  combining  unity  of  action 
and  concentration  of  power  with  local  autonomy.  // 
cannot  be  too  emphatically  stated  that  all  rural  social 
workers  should  work  together  in  unity  of  spirit  and 
purpose.  Whenever  a  clergyman  is  too  sanctimonious, 
narrow,  and  conservative  to  recognize  the  work  of  the 
veterinarian,  physician,  and  lawyer,  or  whenever  the 
physician,  lawyer,  and  clergyman  consider  the  school 
teacher  as  beneath  their  serious  notice,  or  the  school 
teacher  considers  all  those  in  the  community,  except 
herself,  as  ignoramuses,  there  can  be  no  unity  of  spirit 
or  purpose,  and  no  cooperative  activity. 

The  Social  Center.  —  The  most  logical  rallying  point 
for  the  organizations  in  any  district  is  the  social  center. 


220  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

Long  ago,  it  became  apparent  to  thinking  people  that 
schoolhouses  locked  and  idle  at  least  half  the  day  were 
not  yielding  the  greatest  returns  upon  the  investment 
they  represented.  At  the  same  time,  leaders  in  search 
of  a  place  in  which  to  get  a  neighborhood  together  for  pur- 
poses of  social,  civic,  and  cultural  progress  saw  the  possi- 
bility of  a  wider  use  of  the  school  plant  than  had  been 
hitherto  conceived.  This  idea  was  not  without  its  prece- 
dent. The  old-time  spelling,  writing,  and  singing  schools 
of  three  generations  ago  were  a  community  effort  along 
somewhat  similar  lines.  With  the  stagnation  of  farm 
and  village  life,  such  enterprises  fell  into  disuse,  and  it 
was  in  a  city  that  this  old  custom  was  first  revived. 
The  school  center  which  was  opened  on  November  i, 
1917,  in  Rochester,  New  York,  was  one  of  the  first  in 
this  country  to  receive  a  public  appropriation.  Thirty 
states  have  within  recent  years  enacted  laws  tending 
toward  the  development  of  the  enlarged  use  of  the 
public  school  plants  out  of  school  hours  by  others  than 
school  officials  and  pupils.  Although  in  all  these  states 
such  legislation  is  not  yet  effective,  there  are  probably 
more  than  a  thousand  social  centers  in  the  United 
States,  and  the  number  is  constantly  increasing.  Cities 
have  widely  advertised  these  organizations  as  a  part 
of  their  social  welfare  work ;  and  in  a  number  of  states, 
the  rural  social  center  movement  is  developing  along 
lines  that  are  making  for  permanent  and  constructive 
work. 

The  two  places  where  the  social  center  is  most  needed 
are  the  foreign  communities  of  America  —  whether 
urban  or  rural  -  -  and  our  rural  districts.  For  the 
foreign-born  it  may  serve  as  a  training  school  in  Ameri- 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  221 

can  ideals  and  standards ;  for  our  American-born  farm 
people,  it  is  primarily  an  acquaintance-maker  and  a 
social  agency.  It  brings  all  the  residents  of  the  com- 
munity together,  broadening  and  deepening  their  knowl- 
edge of  each  other;  using  their  friendliness,  good- 
will, enthusiasm,  and  cooperation  as  a  constructive 
force  for  improving  local  conditions;  and  enriching 
and  making  happier  each  life  affiliated  with  it. 

Such  an  organization,  to  succeed  in  drawing  all  the 
people  of  a  rural  community  together  in  bonds  of  mutual 
sympathy  and  confidence,  must  have  an  accessible 
location  and  a  suitable  building;  some  organized, 
responsible  control ;  capable  leadership ;  a  definite 
program  of  constructive  work  along  the  lines  of  special 
interest  of  the  community ;  frequent  occasions  that 
will  appeal  to  all  ages  and  both  sexes  and  that  will  unite 
the  entire  community  as  one  social  body. 

The  schoolhouse  rather  than  the  church  or  the  town 
hall  is  the  logical  place  in  which  to  start  a  social  center. 
All  creeds  and  classes  feel  more  at  home  in  a  schoolhouse 
than  they  do  in  a  church  of  any  one  denomination ; 
and  the  young  people  will  be  more  attracted  to  the  school- 
house  than  to  the  town  hall,  unless,  as  has  been  done 
in  a  few  cases,  a  community  hall  be  especially  planned 
for  the  purpose.  But  if  the  schoolhouse  has  been 
planned,  or  modified,  with  a  view  to  its  use  as  a 
social  center,  the  expense  of  building  a  community 
hall  will  not  be  necessary.  Every  consolidated  school 
building  should  have  a  commodious  assembly  hall  and 
a  well-equipped  dining  room.  The  kitchen  used  for 
the  domestic  science  courses  will,  of  course,  be  adaptable 
to  the  use  of  clubs  and  other  gatherings  at  which  it 


222  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

is  desired  to  serve  food.  The  building  may  also  have 
club  rooms  for  the  different  clubs  of  the  community, 
in  which  they  may  hold  their  meetings  and  keep 
their  equipment.  The  dining  room  and.  gymnasium 
may  be  used  for  parties  and  other  festive  occasions. 
In  a  school  building  of  this  kind,  the  social  center  will 
have  its  ideal  and  natural  setting  as  a  part  of  the  edu- 
cational life  of  the  community.  It  is  not  necessary, 
however,  to  wait  until  such  a  building  can  be  provided 
before  starting  the  work  of  the  social  center.  Often 
the  community  must  be  made  more  sociable  before  the 
farmers  and  their  families  will  see  the  need  for  a  commu- 
nity building.  The  little  one-room  school  has  been  used 
in  many  cases  as  the  nucleus  for  a  later  development 
into  a  much  larger  work.  The  school  teacher  may  do 
much  to  arouse  interest  by  organizing  her  pupils  and 
having  them  advertise  the  movement  in  their  homes. 
This  work  has  progressed  so  far  in  Texas,  for  example, 
that  few  school  buildings  are  being  constructed  without 
regard  to  their  possible  use  by  communities  for  other 
than  school  purposes. 

A  community  center,  even  a  small  one,  will  not  run 
itself.  It  must  have  some  form  of  organization  behind 
it,  as  well  as  the  backing  of  the  community  in  general. 
The  teacher  may  be  the  prime  mover  in  getting  the  work 
started,  but  a  representative  body  of  people  in  the  com- 
munity must  take  an  active  part  in  the  conduct  of 
the  work.  One  way  to  secure  such  a  body  is  to  call  a 
meeting  of  the  whole  community  and  have  a  board  of 
directors  elected  or  appointed,  each  one  of  whom  shall 
have  supervision  of  some  one  branch  of  the  work  to  be 
undertaken,  and  who  should  as  a  whole  determine 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  223 

the  policies  of  the  social  center.  A  secretary  to  this 
board  will  be  necessary  if  the  work  is  to  be  carried  on  as 
a  unit.  In  some  cases,  the  school  teacher  may,  for  an 
additional  compensation,  be  employed  in  this  capacity. 
This  board,  with  its  secretary,  constitutes  the  controlling 
body  and  furnishes  the  leadership  required.  It  will 
also  outline  a  constructive  program  in  the  line  of  the 
activities  most  desired  by  the  people  of  the  community, 
including  clubs  for  older  men  and  women,  and  for 
younger  people,  boys'  clubs,  girls'  clubs,  lecture  courses, 
motion  picture  entertainments,  school  plays,  and  many 
other  forms  of  activity  suited  to  each  particular  commu- 
nity. In  some  of  the  rural  centers,  a  program  is  provided 
for  every  Friday  night.  In  one  community  meeting  of 
this  kind  an  experience  meeting  was  held  following  the 
regular  program.  The  testimony  of  one  farmer  is  in- 
dicative of  the  type  of  programs  that  had  been  given : 
"  I  have  learned  things  by  attending  these  meetings 
that  mean  money  to  me.  The  information  we  got 
to-night  on  cotton  and  on  seed  corn  selection  means  a 
ten  per  cent  increase  in  my  next  year's  crops,  anyway. 
That's  one  of  the  reasons  why  my  wife  and  I  come 
twelve  miles  every  time  you  folks  meet  together." 

The  benefits  of  the  social  center  movement  are  many. 
Such  centers  provide  a  place  and  an  opportunity  for 
self-expression  not  always  found  in  rural  life,  expression 
in  play  for  both  old  and  young,  expression  of  opinions 
upon  matters  of  public  importance.  "  The  social  cen- 
ter," said  a  former  speaker  of  the  Texas  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, "  can  be  the  means  of  informing  legislators  as 
to  what  the  people  want.  If  you  tell  us,  we'll  give  you 
what  you  want.  The  trouble  with  most  legislators  is, 


224  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

that  they  don't  know  what  to  give  the  people. ' '  Further- 
more, the  social  center  is  a  means  of  organizing  acquaint- 
anceship. Without  it,  friendship  is  apt  to  be  a  desultory 
thing  based  upon  proximity  of  the  farms  rather  than  upon 
a  mutuality  of  interests,  and  a  spasmodic  thing  limited 
to  chance  calls.  But  in  a  social  center,  all  the  com- 
munity can  get  together  and  come  to  know  each  other 
through  regular  meetings  and  organized  activity,  which 
are,  after  all,  the  best  way  of  getting  acquainted. 

Every  social  worker  in  the  rural  community  should 
train  himself  for  intelligent,  purposeful  leadership. 
Able  and  faithful  leadership  is  recognized  to  be  as  nec- 
essary in  rural  development  as  elsewhere.  Such  leader- 
ship requires  initiative,  organizing  ability,  sympathy  with 
human  failings  and  human  aims,  trained  intelligence, 
vision,  together  with  a  knowledge  of  existing  conditions, 
and  a  capacity  for  recognizing  ability  in  others  who  may 
become  leaders.  The  young  people  who  have  been  born 
and  brought  up  on  the  farm,  with  their  wealth  of 
idealism  and  enthusiasm,  will  make  the  best  leaders ; 
for  a  permanent  resident  leadership  is  more  valuable 
than  that  of  an  occasional  visitor,  such  as  the  govern- 
ment agent,  although  this  leadership  is  also  indispensable. 

Men's  Clubs.  —  In  rural  communities  men's  clubs 
have  in  most  cases  been  chiefly  concerned  with  the  busi- 
ness of  farming,  and  have  not  given  attention  to  the 
cultural  side  of  life.  The  struggle  with  nature,  to  make 
her  produce  as  much  as  possible,  has  kept  the  farmer's 
nose  to  the  grindstone.  But  the  farmer  of  to-day  who 
attends  regularly  the  meetings  at  his  community  center 
will  get,  in  addition  to  information  about  seed  or  soil, 
pleasant  diversion  in  the  way  of  music  or  dramatics 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  225 

provided  by  the  young  people  of  the  community,  or  a 
thrilling  motion  picture  reproduction  of  a  novel  or 
play ;  and  so  his  cultural  development  is  secured 
along  with  the  increased  knowledge  of  his  business. 

Women's  Clubs. — Long  ridiculed  as  inefficient,  gossipy, 
and  time-consuming,  women's  clubs  have  come  to  com- 
mand respect.  The  woman's  club  idea  was  highly  de- 
veloped and  widespread  long  before  farm  women  decided 
that  they  had  problems  worthy  of  consideration  and  dis- 
cussion. They  had  been  too  busy  with  the  cares  of  their 
own  households  to  take  time  to  think,  read,  and  talk 
about  the  many  things  of  vital  interest  to  the  home 
that  are  now  so  generally  the  topic  of  discussion  in  the 
women's  clubs  of  the  rural  district.  More  than  ten  thou- 
sand rural  home-culture  clubs  of  different  kinds  have 
now  been  organized  in  the  United  States.  Such  clubs 
have  a  very  definite  bearing  upon  life  on  the  farm,  for 
whatever  improves  the  health  and  intelligence  and 
broadens  the  outlook  of  the  farm  woman  improves  also 
the  farm  and  the  community.  But  even  yet  there  is 
great  need  for  agitation  on  this  subject.  Often  where 
prosperity  is  indicated  by  great  barns  filled  with  plenty, 
a  dilapidated  house  devoid  of  beauty,  comfort,  and 
convenience  will  be  in  evidence.  The  association  of 
women  in  clubs  has  been  helpful  in  removing  some  of 
these  conditions  in  the  home,  for  the  woman  attend- 
ing club  meetings  acquires  a  feeling  that  it  makes  a 
difference  what  the  neighbors  think,  and  that  she  must 
have  as  good  things  as  the  other  women  have ;  she 
gets  new  ideas  of  the  way  things  may  be  done ;  she 
acquires  a  new  outlook  that  makes  her  work  easier 
and  adds  zest  to  tasks  that  might  otherwise  be  drudgery. 


226  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

A  definite  study  program  for  such  clubs  is  much  better 
than  random  discussion,  as  it  will  inspire  the  women  to 
take  a  little  time  for  the  required  reading  which  they 
might  think  they  could  not  spare  from  their  work  if 
the  subjects  were  based  entirely  upon  general  infor- 
mation. Such  subjects  as  food  values  and  food  con- 
servation, household  management  and  sanitation,  heat- 
ing, lighting,  water  systems  for  the  farm  home,  birds, 
wild  flowers,  the  vegetable  and  the  flower  garden,  cur- 
rent events,  and  the  lives  and  works  of  various  authors, 
will  find  a  ready  response  in  the  minds  of  these  farm 
women.  A  healthy,  happy,  well-informed  woman  makes 
a  vastly  better  home-maker  than  an  ignorant  drudge, 
and  the  woman's  club  can  do  much  in  improving  both 
the  health  and  the  mentality  of  the  farm  woman. 

Young  People's  Clubs.  —  Like  the  clubs  for  older 
people  in  the  rural  community,  young  people's  clubs  may 
combine  work  with  play.  Just  as  the  home  is  an  essen- 
tial part  of  the  farm,  so  the  play  time  of  the  young 
folks  may  be  linked  up  with  their  interest  in  the  work 
of  the  farm.  More  than  half  a  million  young  people 
are  members  of  government  agricultural  clubs  which 
are  known  as  Four  H  Clubs.  The  work  of  these  clubs  is 
fourfold,  dealing  with  Head,  Hand,  Heart,  and  Health, 
and  combines  admirably  the  social  aspect  of  boy  and 
girl  nature  with  the  individualism  so  essential  to  success- 
ful farming.  An  H  is  conferred  on  the  members  for 
special  work.  In  qualifying  for  a  Head  H,  the  boy  or 
girl  must  prove  that  he  or  she  has  a  mind  and  knows 
how  to  use  it.  Schooling,  home  reading,  observation, 
short  courses,  carefulness  in  preparing  work  for  the  club 
project,  are  some  of  the  matters  taken  into  consideration. 


CONSTRUCTIVE   SOCIAL  FORCES  227 

Skill  in  handicraft  is  a  matter  of  test  in  competing 
for  the  Hand  H.  Touch,  steadiness,  dexterity,  handi- 
ness  with  tools,  endurance,  are  factors  in  granting  this 
honor,  as  well  as  things  actually  made  by  the  boy  or 
girl  about  the  farm  or  the  home.  The  Heart  H  is  harder 
to  win,  and  perhaps  also  it  is  harder  to  gauge  the  fitness  of 
any  person  for  this  honor.  Bigness  of  heart  and  unself- 
ishness, service  to  others,  club  cooperation,  and  daily 
devotions  are  the  main  factors,  but  Sunday  school  or 
church  activity,  practical  Christianity,  and  love  of  nature 
are  also  taken  into  consideration.  Creed  has  no  place 
in  this  organization,  and  the  boy  or  girl  without  church 
affiliation  is  as  likely  to  receive  the  honor  as  a  church 
member.  The  play  side  of  life  enters  largely  into  the 
gaining  of  the  Health  H.  Team  games,  swimming, 
running,  jumping,  and  throwing  are  big  factors,  although 
general  physical  condition,  breathing,  and  condition  of 
sight,  hearing,  and  teeth  cover  a  large  number  of  points. 
The  possible  development  of  clubs  of  this  kind  in  a 
typical  agricultural  state,  when  the  matter  has  received 
proper  attention,  may  be  illustrated  by  the  State  of 
Wisconsin,  where  more  than  twenty-one  thousand 
young  people  belong  to  these  clubs.  The  club  organ- 
izations number  1273.  Each  club  has  its  special 
project  or  projects  under  the  direction  of  a  club  leader. 
A  big  feature  of  the  club  has  been  the  demonstration 
work.  One  hundred  and  fifty  trained  teams  recently 
gave  demonstrations  in  four  lines  of  work;  namely, 
poultry,  potatoes,  canning,  and  sewing.  Thousands 
of  people  witnessed  these  demonstrations.  Nearly  all 
the  county  fairs  had  a  junior  department  in  1919, 
and  the  state  fair  had  the  largest  department  in  history. 


228  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

About  five  hundred  boys  and  girls  were  in  camp  at 
the  state  fair. 

Social  leaders  should  not  overlook  the  possibilities  of 
such  clubs  as  these  for  the  development  of  an 
all-round  life  for  boys  and  girls.  A  large  proportion  of 
the  young  people  engaged  in  this  activity  are  members 
of  organized  clubs  and  as  a  rule  these  club  meetings  are 
conducted  without  the  presence  of  the  older  members 
of  the  community.  Such  clubs  make  an  appeal  to  the 
"gang  instinct"  of  young  people,  and  they  also  serve 
to  develop  a  sense  of  responsibility  and  the  capacity 
for  going  ahead  without  depending  upon  the  leadership 
of  an  adult. 

In  organizing  clubs  for  young  people,  the  social  leader 
should  take  into  consideration  the  kinds  of  clubs  already 
in  existence  in  the  community  and  utilize  them.  Or- 
ganized Sunday  school  classes,  Boy  Scout  troops,  and 
Camp  Fire  Girls'  groups  may  be  utilized  as  the  basis 
of  an  agricultural  club,  and  all  the  clubs  may  be  united 
into  a  federation  for  social  and  recreational  purposes.  It 
is  never  wise  to  pile  up  the  number  of  organizations 
to  which  young  people  belong,  especially  if  one  organ- 
ization can  be  found  which  will  provide  for  the  de- 
velopment of  physical,  mental,  spiritual,  and  social 
characteristics. 

The  Boy  Scout  movement  has  done  wonderful  things 
for  city  boys,  by  giving  them  contact  with  the  out- 
of-doors,  a  knowledge  of  the  joy  of  achieving  personal 
skill,  and  an  appreciation  of  the  pleasure  to  be  derived 
from  helpfulness.  Such  activities  as  they  conduct  are 
sorely  needed,  particularly  in  the  small  towns  and  in 
the  rural  districts. 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  229 

The  Camp  Fire  Girls  and  the  Girl  Scouts  are  kindred 
organizations  which  aim  to  develop  the  qualities  of 
service,  health,  education,  and  beauty  in  growing  girls. 
Rural  teachers  can  do  a  service  to  the  young  people  of 
their  community  by  acquainting  them  with  the  work  of 
these  organizations  and,  where  other  organizations  doing 
similar  work  are  not  already  in  the  field,  by  organ- 
izing the  young  people  into  clubs  of  this  kind. 

The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  and  the 
Young  Women's  Christian  Association  are  doing  val- 
uable service  in  rural  districts  as  well  as  in  the  cities.  In 
1916,  there  were  in  the  United  States  113  county 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  secretaries  and 
19,000  members  of  the  association  living  in  rural  dis- 
tricts. Of  these,  14,000  were  boys  and  the  remaining 
number  were  men.  The  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association  does  not  have  quite  so  good  a  showing,  but 
a  beginning  has  been  made.  In  1917,  the  Young 
Women's  Christian  Association  had  23  organizations 
with  a  membership  of  8183.  However,  this  number 
does  not  include  all  the  rural  young  women  affiliated 
with  the  Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  as 
many  belong  to  the  association  in  their  nearest  town  or 
city.  The  association  is  now  training  county  secretaries 
for  rural  work. 

The  Correlation  of  Religious  Interests.  —  Seven  church 
buildings  in  a  town  of  a  thousand  people  is  not  an 
uncommon  thing  in  the  Middle  West,  and  perhaps  also 
in  some  other  parts  of  the  United  States.  Freedom  to 
worship  after  the  dictates  of  one's  own  conscience  has 
been  carried  to  an  extreme,  and  differences  in  belief  and 
and  practice  have  been  emphasized.  But  the  trend  at  the 


230  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

present  time  is  toward  elimination  of  divisions  based 
upon  some  minor  statement  of  creed,  of  the  existence  of 
which  many  of  the  communicants  are  unconscious,  and 
toward  union  of  the  various  church  organizations  into 
one  efficient  body  within  a  local  community.  The 
Interchurch  World  Movement,  organized  in  1919,  has 
helped  to  bring  about  some  degree  of  that  unity  which 
so  many  desire  but  which  so  few  communities  are  able 
to  consummate.  If  the  social  worker  in  rural  dis- 
tricts can  influence  the  people  of  any  community  to  unite 
for  their  religious  observances,  a  great  step  will  have  been 
taken  toward  the  development  of  a  community  spirit, 
and  the  undertaking  of  other  community  activities. 
Church  differences  are  apt  to  be  strong  in  the  country,  and 
their  submergence  may  need  to  be  the  first  step  in  the 
introduction  of  other  social  agencies.  In  some  instances 
the  church  may  be  the  organization  in  which  all  the 
other  social  organizations  of  the  community  will  be 
centered.  The  community  church  is  coming  to  be 
in  some  localities  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  individual 
and  sectarian  differences.  By  this  means,  cooperation 
is  substituted  for  religious  competition.  The  aim  of  the 
community  church  is  not  to  tear  down  existing  denom- 
inational lines,  but  rather  to  adapt  the  form  of  religious 
organization  to  the  peculiar  local  situation.  Instead 
of  having  half  a  dozen  or  more  small  and  inefficient 
churches,  it  is  possible  in  this  way  to  develop  one 
healthy,  live  organization  which  can  employ  one  well- 
paid  and  well-trained  worker,  able  to  devote  his  whole 
time  and  energy  to  the  task.  A  striking  example  of 
this  kind  of  work  is  the  People's  Church  at  East  Lansing, 
Michigan.  This  church  is  becoming  a  "social  experiment 


CONSTRUCTIVE   SOCIAL   FORCES  231 

station,"  and  is  the  heart  of  the  social  and  civic  life  of 
the  town.  The  church  building  is  open  seven  days  a  week, 
and  young  people's  club  meetings,  Boy  Scout  meetings, 
potluck  suppers,  meetings  of  women's  and  men's  organi- 
zations, and  dramatic  performances  are  all  held  in  the 
church.  The  congregation  is  composed  of  people  from 
many  walks  of  life.  Here  may  be  found,  with  their 
families,  laboring  men,  business  men,  farmers,  active 
and  retired,  college  professors,  lawyers,  and  doctors. 
If  a  church  can  succeed  with  so  varied  a  membership, 
the  average  farm  community  ought  to  find  cooperation 
in  religion  a  simple  matter. 


APPENDIX  TO  CHAPTER  IX 

For  information  concerning  methods  of  organization  in  your 
community  of  some  of  the  social  agencies  described  in  this  chapter, 
consult  the  following : 
University  Extension  Work  and  Farmer's  Institutes. 

The  State  University  or  the  State  Agricultural  College. 
County  Libraries. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Antrim's  book,  The  County  Library.     (Or  confer 
with  your  county  agent.) 
Social  Centers. 

A  Community  Center;   What  It  Is  and  How  to  Organize  It.     Bul- 
letin, 1918,  No.  ii ;  United  States  Bureau  of  Education. 
Men's  Clubs. 

See  articles  by  E.  Davenport  on  "  Farm  Bureaus  and  Their  Fed- 
erations," in  The  Country  Gentleman,  Feb.  7,  1920. 
Women's  Clubs. 

Write  to  the  Extension  Division  of  your  State  University. 
Young  People's  Clubs. 

i.  Four  H  Clubs.  Confer  with  your  county  agent,  or  write  to 
Mr.  George  Farrell,  in  charge  of  Boys'  and  Girls'  Club  Work, 
States'  Relations  Service,  Washington,  D.  C. 


232  THE   RURAL   COMMUNITY 

2.  Boy  Scouts  of  America,  200  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York  City. 

3.  Camp  Fire  Girls,  118  E.  28th  St.,  New  York  City. 
Religious  Organizations. 

1.  Young    Men's    Christian   Association,    347    Madison   Ave., 
New  York  City. 

2.  Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  600  Lexington  Ave., 
New  York  City. 

3.  Interchurch  World  Movement,  105  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York  City. 

4.  Organized    Sunday    School    Classes.     Write    to    your    own 
denominational  headquarters  or  to  the  International  Sunday  School 
Association,  Mailers  Building,  Chicago,  Illinois. 

5.  The  Community  Church.     See  article  by  Earl  R.  Trangmar, 
"The  People's  Church,"  in  The  Country  Gentleman,  June  2,  1919. 

QUESTIONS  FOR  FURTHER  STUDY 

1.  Am  I  equipped  for  rural  leadership? 

a.  Am  I  sympathetic?     That  is,  am  I  one  of  these  people, 

or  am  I  merely  trying  to  lead  and  direct  them  ? 

b.  Have  I  a  sincere  respect  for  rural  life  and  for  rural  people  ? 

c.  Have  I  formed  a  distinct  mental  picture  of  what  I  want 

this  community  to  be  and  to  accomplish? 

d.  Can  I  lay  out  a  plan  to  attain  this  ideal  in  the  most 

logical  way  ?     How  much  of  the  work  can  be  accom- 
plished this  year?     Next  year? 

e.  With  how  many  rural  leaders  in  other  places  can  I  confer  ? 
/.    Can  I  carry  out  this  program  for  community  betterment 

alone,  or  must  I  find  helpers  ?    Is  it  wise  for  me  to  do 
all  of  this  work  myself  ? 

g.   Who  are  the  individuals  in  my  community  whom  I  can 
train  to  take  my  place  later  ? 

2.  State  some  of  the  things  which  rural  people  can  do  to  help 
in  the  development  of  rural  life. 

3.  Make  a  list  of  at  least  six  men  and  women  not  mentioned  in 
the  references  in  this  chapter,  who  have  written  along  the  line  of 
rural  betterment. 

4.  Make  a  list  of  at  least  six  universities  and  colleges  that  have 
been  leaders  in  the  country  life  movement. 


CONSTRUCTIVE  SOCIAL  FORCES  233 

5.  How  many  books  bearing  upon  rural  life  do  you  own? 
How  many  have  you  read? 

6.  Do  you  think  rural  teachers  should  be  required  to  read  such 
books? 

7.  State  all  the  arguments  you  can  in  favor  of  public  libraries. 

8.  Give  a  brief  summary  of  the  development  of  county  libraries 
in  the  United  States. 

9.  Write  to  your  State  Department  of  Education  and  learn 
if  your  state  has  a   State  Library  Commission.     If  it  has  such  a 
Commission,  when  was  it  established  and  what  are  its  duties  ? 

10.  In    what    ways    do    such    Commissions    serve    the    rural 
districts  ? 

11.  Write  to  your  State  Library  Commission  and  learn  the 
number  of  county  libraries  in  your  state.     Draw  a  map  of  your 
state,  showing  by  black  dots  the  number  and  location  of  these 
libraries. 

12.  State  some  of  the  methods  which  have  been  used  to  help 
people  in  remote  rural  districts  to  secure  books. 

13.  From  how  many  sources  can  your  reading  circle  or  club 
secure  the  books  now  being  used  for  its  winter's  study  ? 

14.  Is  there  a  public  library  of  any  kind  in  your  community? 
Is  it  serving  the  people  as  it  should? 

15.  By  what  means  can  a  teacher  get  books  to  every  citizen  in 
his  or  her  district? 

1 6.  Make  a  list  of  all  persons  over  twelve  years  of  age  in  your 
school  district  and  classify  them  (i)  as  to  the  work  in  which  they 
are  engaged,  and  (2)  as  to  the  extent  of  their  education.     Make 
a  list  of  one  hundred  books  that  would  be  interesting  and  useful 
to  these  people. 

17.  Why  are  social  conditions  so  important  to  the  rural  com- 
munity?   What  are  some  of  the  values  of  well-conducted  clubs  of 
any  kind  ? 

1 8.  Name  four  general  kinds  of  organizations  which  have  grown 
up  in  rural  communities.     Can  a  community  be  over-organized? 
What  organizations  are  now  existent  in  your  community  ? 

19.  In  case  you  are  not  satisfied  with  the  social  conditions  in 
your  community,  what  do  you  consider  the  best  method  of  improv- 
ing them  ? 


234  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

20.  What  are  the  purposes  of  the  Boy  Scout  movement  ?     When, 
where,  and  by  whom  was  this  organization  formed  ? 

21.  Make  a  list  of  the  boys  of  your  community  who  should  be 
enrolled  in  this  organization.     Is  there  a  local  leader  who  could 
help  in  this  work?     Are  there  several  young  men  who  could  be 
trained  as  Scout  Masters  in  your  community?     Would  this  work 
help  you  to  serve  your  community  to  a  greater  degree  than  you  are 
now  serving  it  ? 

22.  What  are  the  purposes  of  the  Camp  Fire  Girls?    When, 
where,  and  by  whom  was  this  organization  formed  ? 

23.  Consider  the  girls  of  your  community  just  as  you  have 
considered  the  boys  under  question  21. 

24.  What  is  the  value  of  a  literary  club  to  a  rural  community  ? 

25.  Make  out  a  one-year  program  for  a  literary  club,  using 
material  which  you  think  would  be  of  greatest  interest  to  a  majority 
of  the  people  in  your  community. 

26.  Arrange  a  one-year  program  for  a  woman's  club,  using  only 
material  relative  to  the  home. 

27.  State  some  of  the  values  of  debating  societies  for  rural 
young  people.     Make  a  list  of  at  least  a  half  dozen  live  subjects 
you  would  like  to  hear  debated. 

28.  Do  you  think  it  would  be  a  good  plan  to  federate  all  the 
rural  athletic  clubs  in  a  county  into  one  organization  which  would 
meet  once  a  year?     Do  you  approve  of  federation  of  all  kinds  of 
rural  clubs  ? 

29.  What  is  a  social  center?    When  and  where  were  the  first 
social  centers  established  in  the  United  States  ?    What  are  the  main 
purposes  of  a  social  center? 

30.  What  results  may  be  expected  from  the  rural  social  center  ? 

31.  What  qualities    are  necessary  to   leadership?     How  may 
resident  leaders  be  trained  for  rural  districts  and  retained  there  ? 

32.  Why  should  rural  teachers,  clergymen,  physicians,  attorneys, 
county  agricultural  agents,  all  work  together  in  unity  of  purpose 
and  action  ? 

33.  Make  a  list  of  songs  which  you  would  like  to  have  used  for 
community    singing    in    your    community.     Include    in    this   list 
patriotic  and  national  songs,  college  songs,  songs  from  classical 
compositions,  your  state  song,  standard  hymns,  Christmas  songs, 


CONSTRUCTIVE   SOCIAL  FORCES  235 

and  old  favorite  songs  such  as  "Annie  Laurie."  State  some  of  the 
benefits  of  community  singing.  Could  you  start  such  a  movement 
in  your  community?  What  do  you  think  of  a  group  of  your  best 
singers  learning  a  half  dozen  Christmas  carols  and  driving  from 
home  to  home  singing  these  under  the  windows  on  Christmas  Eve  ? 
34.  What  would  be  the  value  to  your  community  of  a  coordi- 
nation of  all  the  religious  organizations  in  it? 

REFERENCES 

ANTRIM,  SAIDA  B.  and  ERNEST.      The  County  Library,  Part  III. 

Pioneer  Press,  Van  Wert,  Ohio,  1914. 
ATHEARN,  W.  S.     Religious  Education  and  American  Democracy, 

Chapters  I-III.      Pilgrim  Press,  Boston,  1917. 
BAILEY,  LIBERTY  HYDE.     The  Country  Life  Movement  in  the  United 

States,  pp.   201-220.   The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York. 

1911. 

— .     The  State  and  the  Farmer,  Chapter  II  to  p.   132.     The 

Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1908. 
BURCHENAL,  MARY  H.     The  Story  of  a  Book  Wagon,   State  Library 

Commission,  Dover,  Delaware. 
BUTTERFIELD,  KENYON  L.     Chapters  in  Rural  Progress,  Chapters 

I ;   II  to  p.  22  ;   XIV.     University  of  Chicago  Press,  Chicago, 

1908. 
CURTIS,   HENRY   STODDARD.     Play  and  Recreation  for  the  Open 

Country,  Chapters   XV-XIX.     Ginn  and  Company,  Boston, 

1914. 
GALPIN,   CHARLES  JOSIAH.     Rural  Social   Centers  in    Wisconsin. 

Bulletin  234,  Agricultural  Experiment  Station,  University  of 

Wisconsin. 

.     Rural  Social  Problems.     Bulletin   711,  College  of  Agri- 
culture, University  of  Wisconsin. 
GILLETTE,  JOHN  M.     Constructive  Rural  Sociology,  Chapters  I,  V. 

The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1916. 
HALL,  ELIZA  CALVERT.    Aunt  Jane  of  Kentucky.     The  entire  work. 

Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  Boston,  1910. 
PLUNKETT,  SIR  HORACE.     The  Rural  Life  Problem  in  the  United 

States.    The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1911. 


236  THE  RURAL   COMMUNITY 

SETON,  ERNEST  THOMPSON.     Boy  Scouts  of  America.     The  entire 

work.     Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  New  York,  1910. 
TAYLOR,    HENRY    C.     Agricultural   Economics,    Chapter    XXIX. 

The  Macmillan  Company,  New  York,  1919. 
WEEKS,  RUTH  MARY.    The  People's  School,  Chapter  VI.     Houghton 

Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  1912. 
Sixth  Annual  Report.    Washington  County  Free  Library, 

Hagerstown,  Md. 


INDEX 


Act,  Adams,  177;  Drug,  102; 
Farm  Loan,  173  ;  Federal  Road, 
198;  First  Experiment  Station, 
177;  Hatch,  177;  Morrill,  176; 
Second  Experiment  Station, 
177;  Smith-Hughes,  177;  Smith- 
Lever,  177. 

Adams  Act,  177. 

Agricultural  ladder,  165,  170. 

Agriculture,  change  in  industry 
in,  162;  complexity  of,  163; 
domestic,  162  ;  importance  of,  4 ; 
in  high  schools,  154;  interests 
in,  2;  ladder  of,  165,  170;  legis- 
lation relating  to,  2 ;  modern, 
162  ;  more  than  an  industry,  5  ; 
population  interested  in,  164; 
processes  in,  24 ;  reports  on,  7,  8. 

Alaska,  177. 

Aments,  96. 

America,  18,  170. 

American  Association  of  Agricul- 
tural Colleges,  158. 

Automobile,  9,  198. 

Barberry,  Japanese,  8. 
BOOTH,  CHARLES,  39. 
Boy  Scouts,  10,  228. 
Brumback  Library,  212. 

California  Fruit  Growers'  Ex- 
change, 189. 

Camp  Fire  Girls,  10. 

Capitalist,  rural,  25. 

Centers,  social,  219. 

Children,  retardation  of,  106. 

Church,  consolidated,  83;  deca- 
dence of,  81 ;  rural,  12,  168,  229. 

Cities,  i ;  dominance  of,  31 ;  in- 
dustry in,  24 ;  location  of,  25 ; 


people  of,  3, 20,  21 ;  percentage  of 
people  in,  76;  politics  in,  29; 
schools  of,  121 ;  workers  in, 
24. 

CLEVELAND,  GROVER,  177. 

Clubs,  10,  228,  216,  224,  226. 

Community,  53  ;  characteristics  of 
farm,  74 ;  center,  222  ;  extent  of, 
53  ;  plan  for  study  of  rural,  85 ; 
religious  life  of,  8 1 . 

Country  Life  Commission,  6. 

County,  farm  bureaus,  180;  li- 
braries, 210,  213;  superintend- 
ent of  schools,  126. 

Danish  Folk  Schools,  155. 
Data,  analyzing  survey,  50. 
Defectives,  mental,  95-96;  moral, 

97- 

Defectiveness,  cost  of  social,  182. 
Defects,  social,  92,  94. 
Degeneration,  102. 
Delinquents,  juvenile,  100. 
Dependents,  ament,  96 ;    cost  of, 

182;     idiot,    95;     imbecile,    95; 

in  rural  districts,   100;    moron, 

95 ;  pauper,  99. 
Drugs,    laws     relating     to,     102 ; 

takers  of,  101. 

Economic  forces,  constructive,  162. 

Education,  in  consolidated  schools, 
121,  130,  134,  151;  in  rural 
schools,  7,  12,  116,  117,  130;  in 
rural  secondary  schools,  145, 
147;  national  system  of,  156; 
service  of  teachers  in,  28,  33, 
97,  105,  109,  120,  124,  133,  164. 

Efficiency,  175. 

Epilepsy,  96. 

237 


238 


INDEX 


Farm,  bureaus,  180;  industry, 
change  in,  162;  labor,  6;  la- 
borers, 1 66;  lands,  6;  lease  sys- 
tem, 170;  mortgages,  167;  op- 
erators, 167;  ownership,  166; 
tenancy,  168,  171  ;  women,  7, 
131  ;  workers,  24,  32. 

Farmers,  federal  aid  for,  176;  re- 
tired, 19. 

Farming  as  an  industry,  27. 

First  Experiment  Station  Act,  177. 

Folk  Schools,  Danish,  155. 

GODDARD,  HENRY  HERBERT,  108. 

Hatch  Act,  177. 

Health,  7. 

Highways,  7,  8,  190-201 ;  ancient, 
190;  Lincoln,  193-195;  state 
aid  for,  193  ;  types  of,  199. 

Idiots,  95. 

Illinois,    owned    farms    in,     169; 

rented  farms  in,  169. 
Imbeciles,  95. 
Industrial  zones,  196. 
Insanity,  96. 
Institutes,  farmers',  209. 
Interdependence  of  city  and  rural 

district,  30,  75. 
Interests,  agricultural,  2. 
Iowa  plan,  153. 

KELLOGG,  PAUL  U.,  39. 

Labor,  9;  saving  devices,  131,  181. 
Land  in  Illinois,  169. 
Lease,  farm,  170. 
Legislation,  agricultural,  2. 
Libraries,  Brumback,  212  ;  county, 

210,  213. 

Life  of  a  community,  religious,  81 ; 

social,  80. 
Lincoln  Highway,  193-195. 

Machinery,  9. 

Mail,  rural  free  delivery  of,  200. 


Marketing,  7. 

Mental  tests,  105,  107 ;  Bine"t- 
Simon,  107-108;  Courtis,  108; 
Stanford  Revision,  108 ;  which 
rural  teachers  can  make,  1 1 1 . 

Minnesota  plan,  153. 

Morons,  95. 

Morrill  Acts,  176. 

Motor  vehicles,  200. 

National  system  of  education,  156. 
Neighborhood,  52. 

Paupers,  99. 

Politics  in  rural  community,  78. 

Population,  19;    agricultural,  164; 

classified,  20 ;   urban,  20,  21. 
Project  work,  home,  137,  158. 
Proprietors,  landed,  172. 
Public  schools  in  a  democracy,  41, 

44. 

Questionnaire,  used  by  Country 
Life  Commissioner,  14;  for 
study  of  rural  community,  85. 

Religious  life  of  a  community,  81. 

Retardation  of  children,  106. 

Roads,  see  Highways. 

ROOSEVELT,  THEODORE,  i,  6. 

Rural,  capitalist,  25;  churches,  12, 
168,  229;  clubs,  10,  216,  224, 
226;  colonies,  28;  cooperation, 
182-187,  l89»  2l8J  credit,  172; 
development,  10;  free  delivery 
of  mail,  200 ;  high  school  courses, 
157;  leadership,  4,  12,  13; 
life  problems,  5,  9,  201 ;  people, 
3 ;  politics,  29 ;  population  in 
Pennsylvania,  21 ;  population  in 
United  States,  76;  schools,  7, 
12,  116,  117,  130;  school  district 
map,  57 1  secondary  schools, 
145-147;  social  grouping,  52; 
teachers,  28,  33,  97,  105,  109, 120, 
124,  133,  164. 


INDEX 


239 


Schools,  rural,  7,  12,  116,  117,  130; 
rural  secondary,  145-147,  149; 
supervision  of,  125— 127  ;  district 
map,  57;  special  agricultural, 
149 ;  backwardness  of  rural, 
119;  trade-center  high,  152. 

Second  Experiment  Station  Act, 
177. 

Smith- Hughes  Act,  177. 

Smith-Lever  Act,  177. 

Speculation  in  farm  lands,  6. 

Stanford  Revision  of  Binet-Simon 
Test,  108. 

State  aid  for  roads,  193. 

Survey,  9,  36;  analyzing  data  of, 
50 ;  Buffalo,  39 ;  comprehen- 
sive, 39 ;  educational,  40 ;  kinds 
of,  37 ;  making  of,  56 ;  maps, 
48-51;  partial,  37;  pathfinder, 
38 ;  Pittsburg,  39 ;  practical, 
37;  preliminary,  38;  purposes 
of,  41,  44;  school  map,  57; 
scientific,  37;  teacher's,  54. 

TAYLOR,  HENRY  C.,  163. 


Teacherage,  129. 

Teachers,  28,  33,  54,  97,  105,  109, 
120,  124,  133,  164. 

Tenure  of  office  for  teachers,  128. 
Terms  which  teachers  should  know, 

in. 
Tests    which    rural    teachers    can 

make,  in. 

Trade-center  high  school,  152. 
Trails,  192 ;  see  Roads,  Highways. 
Types,  of  defectives,  95  ;   of  roads, 

199;   of  rural  high  schools,  149. 

Urban  industry,  24. 
University  extension  work,  207 . 

WILSON,  WOOD  ROW,  173. 
Wisconsin  Cheese  Producers'  Fed- 
eration, 189. 
Workers,  urban,  24. 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion, 10,  181. 

Young  Women's  Christian  Associa- 
tion, 10,  181. 


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